Shaping A Gray Man
by NeonGensis
Summary: What drives a person to swear their soul to the Dark One and become a Gray Man? Set during the Trolloc Wars, this story follows Caraain Bedell, a potent female assassin and her unintended trip down towards swearing her soul away! NOW FINISHED!
1. Finding an Unexpected Intruder

Caraain Bedell loved the night. There was a powerful, almost sexually inviting, aspect to it, she thought. She immersed herself in it, wrapped herself in it, and only found herself truly "alive" as she reveled in it. She loved the invisibility that the moonlight's shadows afforded her, and loved the feel of the slight breeze on her bared face. The breeze seemed cooler and more refreshing in the evening-time. She reflected on this as she dropped from the top of a stone wall and into the private grounds on the other side. There was no noise as she landed on her light, padded feet behind some bushes. She remained still on her haunches for a moment, listening to see if anyone had noticed and came to investigate. Caraain heard nothing, and no one came.  
  
  
She looked towards her right and left, gathering her bearings. It was a grove of some sort, as depicted by the bountiful bushes and trees around her, all thickly blanketed in pristine new-fallen snow. I'm in the castle's southeast corner, she thought to herself. The nearest entrance would be thirty paces to the left, and another fifty straight ahead. The map of her surroundings that she had memorized earlier burned brightly in the forefront of her mind.  
  
  
"Kill the lord, Caraain," the man... her client... had told her two weeks ago, "and you shall be handsomely rewarded for your...troubles." He gave her a leather pouch that was full of heavy gold coins, promising twice that later, and pointed out where on the map he would be found at this time of year. "He is but a minor lord, beneath the notice of other lords including myself. But there would be... complications if we were to be directly involved in his...disappearance. Be sure to leave no traces of any connection to us."  
  
  
Caraain remembered laughing, telling the lord to his face that he was an overly cautious fool. I am a professional, she thought. Among the best of them. I do not make mistakes or leave messes behind me.  
  
  
Quietly she made her way through the bushes of the nobleman's grounds, and towards the nobleman's manor itself. At a clearing, she stepped into the open, and raised her hood above her head. Even at nighttime, there were many people coming into and out of the place, particularly through the servants' entrances. However it never hurt to take precautions while you could. One never knew---  
  
  
Caraain's thoughts abruptly stopped as she neared the usually unguarded door. She slowed to a halt, and stared. There was a man there, obviously a hired guard by the quality of the sword's scabbard hanging at his waist, and the absence of a palace guard uniform on his wide frame, smoking some tabac. Even at the distance between them, Caraain could smell its distinct, pungent aroma.   
  
  
Caraain looked at herself. Her clothes were cut in the same style as those of the servants of the nobleman who lived here, although entirely in black and grays. She had taken that precaution earlier. She clenched her fists and walked directly up to the door, congratulating and admonishing herself at the same time for her undauntedness. By thirty paces the man hadn't even looked up-- a good sign, she thought-- until he finally glanced at her and came to life.  
  
  
The sound of his blade rasping as it was unsheathed was loud to Caraain's ears, and she winced somewhat. The hired guard, or mercenary, Caraain could not tell which he was, regarded her levelly, with his slim blade tilted towards her. She noticed it had a heron etched near the pommel of the otherwise unadorned hilt, and sucked in her breath through clenched teeth.   
  
  
"Who are you, and state your business, woman," he barked at her. His voice was cool and level, despite a hint of rashness and laced with the edge of a temper. Caraain could not make out his features very well, despite him facing the moonlight. That was good. It meant she would only appear as a darkened silhouette to him. After a moment's pause, she drew nearer.   
  
  
Within twenty paces of the mercenary, or guard, she threw wide her cloak, exposing the servant's uniform underneath. He seemed to relax, and then sheathed his sword again. "Only a servant," she heard him mutter under his breath. He picked up his fallen pipe, and took a draw from it, and leaned back against a crate. She exhaled slowly.  
  
  
The mercenary eyed her up and down, as she came nearer and smiled to himself. "Hold on, now," he said, with what he thought was a disarmingly charming smile. "I thought I knew all of the girls here. And you're certainly a better catch than the others are. What's your name?"  
  
  
Caraain regarded him with a flat level look and tried to make her way around him, but the mercenary raised his foot so it rested on the doorframe, barring her from passing. So close. So close....  
  
  
"Please sir," she said, with as meek a voice as she could manage, "It's late, and I really must rest." She tried to continue forward, but he caught her from taking another step, his hand placed just under her breast. She tilted an eyebrow at him. She was losing her patience with this fool of a man.  
  
  
The mercenary wagged a finger at her. "Not until you pay the toll, dearie," he said, pointing to his puckered lips. His eyes were closed and he leaned forward so that she could reach up to him. His other hand seemed to be inching upwards now, nearly touching, and brushing, against her breasts....  
  
  
His youthful face was aglow in the moonlight, and his hair was held back with a thin leather cord. She would have found him desirable, under other circumstances, if he were not so much of a pig. What the hell, she thought, I gave it my best shot. She held his face in both her hands and pulled his face to hers. Their lips met, and parted to merge with each other, under the stars.  
  
  
After a moment, the man screamed. Well, tried to scream, considering she was biting down on his tongue as hard as she could. He tried to pull himself free, but instead he was thrown back by Caraain, and fell to the ground with a crash.   
  
  
"Whore! Bwoody fwaming whore," he cursed, spitting the blood that was now dribbling out of his mouth. Caraain stood over him, laughing musically. "I'll teach you a lesson, and have my fun while I'm at it, servant or no," he added, his hand reaching for the sword at his side.  
  
  
Kick them when they're down, she was taught. Don't give them a chance to get up again, especially if they're larger than you are. Take whatever advantage you can of the situation, or they will take your life. Caraain remembered this, as she reactively stepped forward and stamped her heel to where his legs met.  
  
  
There was a brief, loud scream of excruciating pain, silenced quickly with a ragged blade drawn across his throat. Caraain watched for a brief moment as blood spurt out of the gaping wound, steaming as it fell onto the blue-white powdered snow. It reminded her of a legend she heard once while training to become an assassin, that the Dark One harvests the souls of those killed in violence. With a dull look in her eyes, she wiped the blade on the man's pants leg, and reconcealed the blade somewhere on her body.   
  
  
Caraain stepped over the corpse and picked him up by the arms, and dragged him towards a nearby weeping willow tree, its vines wrapped in ice. Cursing under her breath, she wondered what time it was, and hoped it was too late for anyone to be up and around, and that could have heard his scream. Her ears were alert, but she heard nothing. If anyone did hear the man's scream, she thought as she wiped some light perspiration from her brow, concealing his body should at least buy me some time. Then she went over to where the man fell, kicked some fresh snow over the bloodied patch, and went inside the manor. She decided to be on the safe side, to take the longest, most inconvenient way out of the vicinity.   
  
  
She was impressed with how lavishly the interior of the manor was furnished with products from the world over, with even a few relics that could have survived from before the time of the Breaking. She never expected this from a supposedly minor lord. Perhaps, after the job was finished, she could be a cat burglar too, and pick up something she liked.   
  
  
Not many were in the manor. She was concerned only slightly; she could not believe her good luck at being able to travel through the place so easily. She should have seen many guards by now, and a good number of servants scuttling about, minor lord or not. There were only the occasional hand-servant carrying linens in her arms, and one or two lightly armed foot soldiers patrolling. No one noticed her, and there was no need for her to eliminate any of them. Nevertheless, she palmed a few throwing dirks in either hand.  
  
  
Caraain arrived at the lord's bedchamber within minutes, having maneuvered throughout the entire manor without incident. She saw candlelight flickering from underneath the doors, and heard noise from within. She hesitated, before cracking open the door and pushing it slowly, silently.  
  
  
She gasped in horror. Her knives fell from her hands, and clattered on the ground.  
  
  
The three...monsters turned in unison to face her. She did not know what they were, but Caraain had never been more afraid of anything in her whole life than she was now. They were immense in size, as tall as she was even crouching, and wore menacing-looking black armor covered in spikes. One had a goat's head, another an eagle's head, the third a wolf's, and each of their gaping jaws dripped or were crusted with blood, as they circled over some unfortunate carcass.  
  
  
A deep growl rose from within wolf-head's throat, and was followed by one from the goat's and the eagle's. They rose from their knees in unison, and the corpse fell from between them, his head bouncing with a hollow sound on the tiles. Caraain could see it was the petty little lord she had been hired to kill-- his throat and intestines ripped out mercilessly. She gasped and felt herself sickening up, in spite of herself.  
  
  
Goat-head stepped forward, drawing forth a large cudgel. It was basically a huge wooden stick, but the end of it was wrapped in barbed wire with a large black spike protruding through the thorny mesh. It bobbed up and down, as if in anticipation, as goat-head took another step with a deep unnatural growl emanating from its throat. Its two companions seemed to be grinning behind him, as they presented their own weapons. Wolf-head unsheathed a menacing-looking blade unlike anything she had ever seen before, black as the night. Eagle-head took a butterfly knife in either hand from behind his belt. Suddenly wold-head growled some sort of bark, and goat-head and eagle-head charged in unison.  
  
  
Caraain automatically stepped backwards, nearly tripping herself. She had little time to unsheathe her own weapon, a scimitar, with notches on the flat edge of the blade indicating a sword-breaker combination. Goat-head reached her first, his cudgel already falling towards her head. She caught it with her hand and deflected it, the spike just barely missing her left ear. At the same time, she freed her own blade and sliced it in an upward arc, catching one of eagle-head's blades. The knife slid into one of the deep notches in Caraain's blade, and with a sharp twist of her wrist, she broke that blade in half.   
  
  
Caraain did a jump spinning kick into goat-head's side, where she approximated its kidneys to be, and it roared with fury and pain. As it fell to its knees clutching its side, Caraain swiftly brought her leg up to her shoulder and axe-kicked it with her heel across its collar bone. It howled in pain and caught its breath on its knees before getting up again.  
  
  
She leaped to the side just as eagle-head brought its other knife down, and stabbed at her with the stump of the broken knife. She sidestepped his thrust easily, and threw a roundhouse kick up as the assailant whooshed by. The tip of her steel-toed boots connected with his solar plexus perfectly, and the monster was down on the ground, clutching at his own torso. He screamed with surprise and the initial shock of it, and his disfigured feathered head seemed to be going red. The scimitar whirled in Caraain's hands and turned point-down. She leaped towards the monster with a wordless cry, the hilt clutched with both white-knuckled hands.   
  
  
Eagle-head rolled over just in time, and a boot out of nowhere kicked her blade aside as it pierced the tiles. She turned and hissed as she saw wolf-head grinning at her, pink-tinted rows of fangs slick with the lord's blood. The ominous black blade whirled in its hands as it spun from one form to the other, chopping and thrusting and slashing, as Caraain threw herself to the ground, trying to roll and scramble away from its reach as quickly as she could manage. Suddenly she bumped into something. Something big, and smelling of musky fur. She spun wildly, her left arm coming for a cross punch at whatever stood behind her.  
  
  
Goat-head laughed as it caught her fist easily, and with a gauntleted fist the size of her head smacked her across the face. Caraain winced, her cheeks stinging with the pain. Something wet was dribbling from her mouth, she spat and saw it was blood. She looked up at the gloating monster, fear and hesitation replaced by disgust and bloodlust.   
  
  
"You BASTARD!" she cried, as she spun and brought her other arm's elbow directly into an area directly under its armpit. She followed that with a palm uppercut into its jaws, which sent it to its knees. Just as it was falling, Caraain grabbed it, and with the butt of her palms, stuck its eye sockets simultaneously from behind. She grabbed one of its horns and supported the monster upright, and, raised one of her boots against the nape of its neck. Kicking out violently with her boot while pulling on the horns, she felt its skull pop as it dislocated. Goat-head slumped to the floor wordlessly, easily.  
  
  
"Heh!," Caraain said under her breath, wiping away the blood that now trickled down her chin. She picked up her fallen scimitar, and waited. She raised her free arm to shoulder height, and beckoned them with a gesture.   
  
  
Eagle-head hesitated as it saw this, and actually stepped back. It turned to face wolf-head, with what looked like a confused or questioning expression on its face. So that's the leader, Caraain observed. Her eyes glanced down to the blade it held in its hand, which was in the form of a human's but was furred and clawed. She wanted it.   
  
  
Wolf-head stepped forward and raised its hand. Eagle-head lowered its weapon to its side, but Caraain noticed it still had a firm grip on the hilt. It seemed to want to talk to her. Caraain was confused.   
  
  
"That's far enough," she said just as it was far enough so it couldn't reach her with the sword. She immediately felt foolish, unsure as to whether the monsters could understand her. "If you want to discuss things, do it from there. I am a trained killer," she declared, hoping they got the hint and slunk off somewhere, "and I have already killed one of yours while sustaining only a minor injury myself." She hoped it understood what she said; the monster seemed fixated to one spot, looking as it if it was translating what she said in its head.  
  
  
"You. Come," it, said, slowly. It raised a paw...or hand... towards her. "You come. We take. We take you. Come to big boss. We take you. You prove. Yourself. Come." Its voice struggled with the foreign, unaccustomed words and gave up. It growled in frustration and shook its head so that its silver-gray mane shook like a bolt of silk threads.   
  
  
Caraain saw it sheathe its great sword, and Eagle-head followed its example. After a moment of thought, she lowered her weapon to her side, but did not sheath it. Wolf-head looked genuinely pleased by this, and hopped up and down with overjoyed excitement.   
  
  
"Do anything funny and I'll kill you were you stand," she said to them. She hoped to the Light that they couldn't tell she was bluffing. With the adrenaline slowly fading from her veins, she suddenly felt as heavy as a rock, and her arms felt like lead. "Now," she added, "take me to this leader of yours."  
  
  



	2. The Treachery of Trollocs

Caraain had been walking for several hours through the woods before her two companions finally decided to take a break... possibly for her sake more than theirs. The golden light of dawn poured through the dense forestation like water through a sieve, casting jagged and groping shadows along the ground.She leaned against a tree and sighed, wiping the light perspiration from her brow. Her two other companions stood patiently by two huge oaks further down the trail, a blank look in their animal gazes. They were immense, stinking animals that stood on their hind legs and wore battered black armor. Monsters, Caraain thought. Monsters straight out of nightmares meant to scare little children. She had fought them last night, although to a stalemate. Caraain had the impression that they were weighing her in their minds, wondering if the two of them together, with their crude but large weapons, could overcome her.They probably could, she thought to herself, and for effect she unsheathed her scimitar and pretended to examine the blade. That earlier kill was probably a lot of luck and adrenaline in my favor.  
  
She glanced down to the corpse the two monsters had insisted on bringing. It was another one of the monsters, the one she had fallen by snapping its neck. Luck, she muttered under her breath. Its armor was badly scratched and the entire body was covered in a coating of dust. Its head rolled around limply, sickeningly. They had not bothered to carry it between the two of them but instead let it drag by holding onto an arm each. Her lips tightened at the corners in a dour grimace. You are monsters, she said, but this is your comrade! Have you no honor or respect?  
  
"Come," said one of the monsters. Its head was that of a wolf's, and at its side it wore a huge black blade, larger and more menacing-looking than any other she had ever seen. It had spoken to her last night, too, and attempted conversation with her while on their journey, but its deep, throaty voice was still disturbing to hear. Every word felt as if iron spikes were being dragged down her spine. "You come. You rest no more. Rest at camp of leader. Leader want meet you." It beckoned her with two huge hands that could have covered her face with its palms alone. They were human hands, but were tufted with silver and gray hair at the knuckles and had black, cracked claws rather than fingernails. "Leader waiting. Come."  
  
Caraain was perplexed as to who...or what...these creatures were and where they came from. She remembered stories from her Nana, long ago when she was a child, of grotesque and hideous beings who would make you work for the Dark One if you were bad. But those were legends, weren't they? They couldn't possibly real. And yet two of them stood right in front of her now. And she had killed one with her bare hands last night....  
  
What was even more confusing was that these monsters had someone to lead them. Who on earth could command these ferocious animal warriors? Who would want to? And to what purpose? Caraain had always considered herself the most intimidating person she'd ever known, but was intrigued to meet someone intimidating enough to drive and command these animals. The Dark One, perhaps? No, it couldn't be. She'd heard the stories and legends of course-- who hadn't? --but that's all they were to her. The Dark One was just a story, a fable.  
  
"You still haven't told me who your leader is, wolfie. And how much more do we have to go? My flaming feet are hurting from all this tromping through the woods." She sheathed her blade and stood as straight as she could manage. She was always short, but to only barely reach its chest height was infuriating.   
  
"Not further," it replied, "two more leagues. Promise. Two more." Then it turned and stomped off forward, along with eagle-head, dragging goat-head in their wake.  
  
Caraain wondered whether this was entirely worth the effort. After a moment's hesitation, she sighed and followed after them, deeper into the heart of the woods.   
  
  
The sun nearly stood overhead by the time they had reached the camp. It was actually six leagues further away than wolf-head had promised, but Caraain hardly cared by the time they arrived. Her calfs were burning with weariness and the black costume she had worn the night before was damp with sweat and covered with dust. She was overjoyed to find the site had a nearby brisk-flowing stream; the only thing she was interested in at that point was a nice long bath to clean off.   
  
First things first, Caraain reminded herself, and continued on.   
  
When they entered the camp, all thoughts were driven from her head. She was too scared to think. There were hundreds of pitched tents, each tarp camoflauged to hide into the scenery from far off. But that wasn't what scared her. There were more creatures...hundreds of them, from what Caraain could tell. She had tried to keep track of how many she saw, but fear was the only thing she could experience. Each of them towered over her, and wore black armor as well, although in varying cuts and styles. Each monster was human-shaped, even if their heads were not. Like her companions, they had the heads of animals: she saw bears', goats', wolves', eagles', hawks', antelopes', bisons', and other animals' heads on misshapen and grotesque bodies. Some of them also seemed to be chimeras, with the physical features of more than one animal. But they all looked hungry, as they stared at her. Caraain shivered imperceptibly, and continued on.  
  
Caraain found herself drawing nearer to wolf-head and eagle-head, as if they would protect her. In a sense, they did-- they snarled at anyone who came too close to them as they waded through the camp. There were men in the camp as well, though in far less numbers as the monsters. Oddly enough, they seemed to be left alone by the beasts. She couldn't make out any of their facial features, and wondered how heavy their cloaks were-- despite the cool slight breeze blowing through the branches and leaves, their cloaks hung dead and lifeless. Caraain shivered and continued on.  
  
Weapons were strewn all over the camps. The camps themselves seemed scattered randomly around, but, upon closer inspection, revealed to be clustered around black banners that were pitched upright into the ground. The banners hung dead in the air, hardly stirring in the breeze, adorned with unfathomable white symbols and scratch marks that appeared to be some kind of lettering. In each clustering of camps, there was a huge black caludron, bubbling and steaming, surrounded by drooling and ravished-looking soldier-beasts. Caraain could smell meat cooking in those huge vats, but could not discern what type it was. Horses were penned in each camp and they stomped and stepped and screeched shrilly. The camp was filled with their cries. One monster, with the head of a fox and the horns of an elk, came up to one horse and punched it across its face to silence it. The horse fell over to its side in the mud, causing the other horses around it to shriek even harder. Caraain glared at fox-head with sickly fascination and continued on.  
  
Finally eagle-head and wolf-head stopped, and Caraain had a chance to look around her. They had stopped in front of one of the pitched tents, which were completely identical to all of the others. The banner pitched in front of it held the emblem of a gauntleted fist, spikes emerging from its knuckles. Two creatures in front of it-- another wolf-head armed with an axe looped into its belt, and one bear-head that didn't appear to be armed with anything beyond a pair of oversized blades --came forward and took a look at the fallen goat-head. Bear-head prodded it with his boot.   
  
They started conversing to each other in what Caraain thought must have been their native tongue. She couldn't understand a word of it, it seemed mostly of guttural grunts and snarls, harsh-sounding to her ears. Despite the language barrier, though, she followed the gist of it: along with a series of grunts and growls, wolf-head pointed at the corpse at their feet--rigor mortis had already set in by then-- and then towards a large cauldron that was being stirred by another monster with the head of a ram.   
  
"You're...you're going to EAT him?" Caraain asked incredulously, not caring if the creatures saw the outraged and disgusted look on her face. Several heads turned towards her and a low growl rose throughout the camp. Caraain saw a number of the closer ones lick their lips, and she told them angrily, "Stop that!" A few of the meeker ones turned their heads and tried to pretend not being there. The others merely started growling even louder, now.   
  
Wolf-head crossed its huge, thick arms over a barrel of a chest, and grinned with satisfaction. "Him...food. Good meat. Much meat for us," it said slowly, trying to figure out the words as it went along. They stared as bear-head and its companion dragged the body away, Caraain's face full of disgust and wolf-head with a ravished look.   
  
"Now you see what Trolloc camp like," it said. "Now we meet leader. Lady wait in camp."  
  
Caraain froze. Trollocs? Did it say Trollocs? She gulped and stepped back automatically.She stopped herself before she took another one. Fear was the one expression not to show now, she decided. "You? You're a Trolloc?" She pointed at it and raised her eyebrows, in an astonished or awed look.   
  
Wolf-head's muzzle scrunched up as it looked at her with a confused expression across its face. "What you mean?"  
  
"Trollocs are children's stories!You're not real....are you?" Caraain unsheathed her scimitar and held it directly in front of her, ready for an attack. Light, get me out of here!, Caraain's thoughts screamed. She looked over her shoulder as she started backing away, slowly. None of the Trollocs moved an inch. They simply stared.  
  
Then, abruptly they started laughing. Even some of the humans, far off, stared at her and smiled faintly, amused. Caraain shivered in her boots, but did not lower her stance. She was confused. Of COURSE they had to be SOMEthing, but somehow she felt unprepared to see a horror story she'd heard as a child come to life. Horrendous monsters, as her Nana called them, standing all around her, surrounding her, impossible numbers of Trollocs on every side! Light!  
  
Her legs gave way, and she collapsed to the ground. Her arms dropped to her side, and her blade fell from her hands. So now she was going to die. Tears welled up and stung her eyes. "I'm not ready....not ready to die yet," she whispered to herself. Caraain was rarely afraid of anything up to this point while she was growing up, and now fear had her in a suffocating and paralyzing grip. She couldn't move. She tried to stop shaking, tried to tell herself that it was alright, that she could take them on. She tried to tell herself to quit acting like a flaming fool of a girl, not yet ready to be loosed from her mother's drawstrings. But only one thought flashed in her head, over and over and over: I'm going to die here. Now.  
  
Suddenly, something gripped her heart in a fist of ice, and slowly squeezed out the warmth in her body. Her eyes snapped open and she stared wildly around her. Caraain could feel her consciousness slipping away, and could see the blackness creep into the corners of her vision. She gulped mouthfuls of air down, but could not breathe. She scratched at her throat and poundded on her chest. Caraain stared wildly at nothing and everything, seeing only monstrous faces...Trollocs!...and humans...they must be Darkfriends!... laughing at her, and the blackness creeping in the corners of her eyes.  
  
Caraain saw one of the humans, she could not make out which one, kneel in front of her and run his pale fingers through her hair. "Don't fight it. It just makes it harder. You will meet our lord, now." She wanted to spit at him, but paused when she noticed something strange about the way he was looking at her. He...he had no eyes? It looked as through the area where his eyes were supposed to be were only two patches of smooth unbroken pale skin. Caraain was confused by this. Was she going mad as well?  
  
She did not know when it ended, but when it did, her head slid forward and bounced hard on the dusty packed ground. Her fingernails scrabbled at the soil, clutching at the stones and pebbles between her fingers. She could not feel anything, only the cold that had gripped at her lungs so tightly. "So this is what it means to die," she thought, feeling her eyes crust and glaze over. Then the blackness finally set in, and she did not stir again.   



	3. Voices and Whsipers

  
  
Caraain could not feel anything, only the cold that had gripped at her lungs so tightly. "So this is what it means to die," she thought, feeling her eyes crust and glaze over. Then the blackness finally set in, and she did not stir again.   
  
*****  
  
Caraain did not know how long it was when she finally awoke. Her head felt as if stuffed with wool, and her lungs burned and were chilled with every slow and ragged breath she took. I'm breathing, she thought after a moment's pause.  
  
She looked around herself. Light, I'm even more screwed up than I thought, she said to herself. She did not know where it was, but she doubted that she was still... still.... Where WAS she supposed to be? Caraain pursed her lips as she always did in self-absorbed thought, and could conclude nothing.   
  
She was still laying on the hard-packed ground, her eyes turned towards the sky. If it was the sky. It certainly didn't look like any sky she knew of. The space above her and the land shifted every few seconds, like a giant hand was wiping away the clouds and the birds to reveal a new layer underneath. It was most discomforting. It shifted from brilliant reds and crimsons of the setting sun, to the bright blues and tufted whites of a summer's day, to the bleak and empty grays of winter, to the interior of the fortresses or palaces (with redstone columns vaulting all around her only to disappear into the shadowed heights), to the overhead canopies of lush forests branching and weaving above. It went on and on, without end, without any recognizable pattern to the bizarre phenomenom.  
  
Caraain raised her head and rested on her elbows, and looked around. Her scenery was shifting along with the skies, and just as rapidly. She felt as if she were going to be sick. However, she though, the ground is the same. I'm still on dusty pebbled soil.  
  
As soon as this thought came to her, the shifting stopped, and all was black. The ground had turned into a cold hard tiled floor, in assorted stones of reds and whites and blacks. Caraain looked at herself, and noticed she could still see herself and the floor, as though it was as bright as midday. There just wasn't very much to see. No, that wasn't right. There WASN'T anything to see there. Just the floor.   
  
Slowly, Caraain stood up, already wincing expectantly at the pains and aches she would undoubtedly feel-- and blinked. She examined all of her joints, tested with her two longest fingers all the vulnerable soft points on her body. There wasn't single thing wrong with her. No broken bones, no bruises. Just the unusual sensations in her head, and cold, fierce, burning in her lungs. It would pass, she thought, and dismissed the sensations from then.  
  
Suddenly, the sky flashed with blues and whites. The lights seemed to come from directly over her head, and appeared to waver and disperse, and refract.   
  
It reminded her of an ancient memory, from her childhood: she would dive into the depths of Lake Almasen, near her home in Aelgar, despite her mother and Nanas telling her to be careful not to tan or burn her skin. She could swim for leagues on end, for hour upon hour. Her favorite trick was to swim all the way to the bottom of the lake, full of cloudy mud and flashing silverfish intertwined in the undulating fields of weeds, and just sit there. She would huddle her legs close and blow out her cheeks while holding her breath and look up to see the sun bend and break and refract through the water.   
  
Caraain shivered, and wondered if she was dead. Then, slowly, and almost minutely, the voice came. She did not know who or what it was, and she strained her ears to catch it.   
  
"So Maggot, you choose to kill one of my Trollocs, and now you are brought to face me," the light said, softly, distantly.  
  
Trolloc? Maggot? Who are you?  
  
"Are you a darkfriend? And if you aren't, are you so stupid as to follow a pair of trollocs into a trolloc encampment and escape with your life?" The voice continued, inside of her. Darkfriend? What? Trollocs? Caraain strained her ears even further, trying to make the words fit together, trying to make sense of it. She could hear her heart beating and the blood in her head rushing, flowing. All was silent, save the voice from the light.  
  
"If this one had not used its brains and brought you to me, then you would be in a cookpot or a trolloc's belly right now. Now answer my question, who are you?"  
  
Caraain looked at her hands, which were shaking. With fear? Or with outrage? She did not know. Memories flashed inside her eyes. Aelgar, her home. Who am I? Jin-Hya, Ras, Marduke, Shaunil, Amalen, Turin, Heidegin; her lovers and loves, in chronological order. Who am I? Fury, her wolf-hound. Who am I? Maslow, her mentor. Names and faces and places flashed before her, blinding her with brilliant light with each change. Who am I? Amarin, her mother. Tuvix, her father. Who am I?   
  
The light subsided and faded away, and was gone. Caraain stared at her hands, knuckles white and balled into fists now. I mustn't run away. I must find out. Who am I? What is this place? Abruptly, she noticed the floors, and gasped.   
  
The floor, tiled in reds and blacks and whites, was not a random formation. It was a perfectly round circle, bordered with a thick outter circle of red, and a waving line across its diameter. The line broke the circle to form two symmetrical teardrops. One white, one black. Caraain was standing near the line, near the center, but on the black half.   
  
Who are you? Voices drifted across in the darkness. Who am I?   
  
She wrapped her light gray cloak around her, and shivered. And took a step. And another. Caraain kept her head low, but her guard up. She was going to find some answers.  



	4. Ba'alzamon Emerges

  
Caraain encased herself in the raven black cloak, wrapping the garment over the graceful curves of her elegant body. A pervasive cold nevertheless taunted her senses, gripping her bones and blood firmly in its merciless grasp. Bracing herself against the foreboding beckons of the night, Caraain resolved to discover what lay at the heart of this otherworldly chimera. I'm going to find some answers, she promised aloud, to no one in particular.  
  
"You want answers do you? Do you even know the right questions to ask?"  
  
Caraain bolted at the chime of a deep, coolly modulated voice. She knotted the tight, lean muscles of her athletic and finely honed body into a defensive stance, ready to spring into attack should the occasion call for it. Lamenting the obvious and unforgiving lack of weaponry on her person, Caraain peered through the darkness to locate the unwelcome arrival.  
  
The man who appeared was not the rough and tumble brigand she expected. A tallish man in his thirties stood before her with his arms crossed arrogantly, leering unabashedly at her in a most thorough inspection. Dressed in fine black silk-laced apparel, he commanded a regal bearing and a practiced air of self-possession. Not a military officer, exactly, but a powerful noble, perhaps? The clothes would certainly seem to lend credence to that thought. Though he was anywhere from ten to fifteen years older than her, Caraain deemed him handsome enough to warrant a night of shared pleasure. Would she be forced to kill him, whoever he was? That truly would be a waste.  
  
She noticed she still stood on the strange dual teardrop design of red and white and black bricks. The white half of the two teardrop disks lay under her, while her visitor occupied the black half. A red line separated the two of them. "Who are you? Where am I?" She demanded of him.  
  
"Such impertinence." The stranger bellowed, but somehow sounding more amused than insulted. He gestured slightly with his finger ----  
  
----- And Caraain found herself hovering impossibly several spans directly above the floor, like a bird somehow suspended in mid flight by a powerful breeze. A great pressure smashed in to her from all angles onto every inch of her body, a great weight that pressed relentlessly down on her flesh, threatening to crush through muscle and bone, as if being squeezed by some unseen palm. She attempted to scream, and finding no air in her constricted lungs gasped futilely. Caraain flailed about madly trying to find solid ground and perhaps an escape, but her body only dangled from the same transfixed point in the air, as if from a string.   
  
From somewhere beneath her, as she writhed in helpless agony, she heard the stranger's mocking voice. "You killed one of my pet Trollocs. For that I should let them feast on your dismembered corpse. Or else give you in sport to the Myrddraal. A woman of your attractive features would find their amusements more objectionable than roasting to death in a Trolloc cockpit. However, in addition to these two options I have lain out, there is a third. Care to hear it?" Afraid her ribcage or spine might finally snap from under the unseen pressure, Caraain nodded, as best she could, a desperate gesture of affirmation.  
  
Immediately she experienced the briefest sensation of falling, of the invisible string that held her being cut suddenly loose. Then she was aware of a great thud, of the reverberating agony of crashing onto a hard block floor. A few moments passed before she could recover. Slowly, painfully, she crawled to her hands and knees. Peering down, Caraain noticed the strange pattern of the tile floor had transformed. When she dared to stand up, she could discern in its entirety the section of floor she stood on.  
  
The inverted teardrop design had given way to a white skull on a red and black background. The wedge shaped skull sported two large horizontal horns at it tops, and rows of razor sharp teeth curved sinisterly upwards in a hungry smile from what would have been the snout. She had seen that symbol only once before, on the shoulders of the half animal monsters that had called themselves Trollocs.   
  
Looking around, she discovered herself situated in the middle of a bizarre room. Strange stone columns curved gracefully from the floor to form eloquent arches. From one end of the room a great hearth blazed midnight black flames that seemed to radiate cold instead of heat. At the other end of the room, the floor opened up into a balcony that guarded an impossible view: striated gray clouds darted through a blood red sky, and the slopes of some black mountain loomed ominously in the distance.   
  
Near the balcony, sitting behind a great mahogany desk, the stranger sat drinking wine from a chalice, regarding her curiously. "Who are you?" She demanded again, though this time fear and pain mitigated the steel in her voice.  
  
"My followers call me Ba'alzamon," he said simply. Caraain winced. The Heart of Darkness? This is a very bad dream   
  
"Is it a dream, Caraain?" Ba'alzamon inquired. Caraain gasped. Had he heard her thoughts? How did he know her name? He smirked. "I assure you that the two of us, at least, are real. And so is my Master, the Great Lord of the Dark, the Lord of Twilight, before whom nothing can ultimately stand in defiance. The Armies of the Night have finally gathered, Caraain. The camp you saw was but a drop in the ocean, a forward guard of advance scouts. Their true numbers challenge the greatest armies of the world combined. I have let them loose to savage the world. Even now the war begins in earnest. Few nations, if any, will survive their wake."  
  
This is just a dream Caraain repeated to herself silently, desperately.  
  
Ba'alzamon continued unabated. "There is little that will not be consumed in the coming darkness, Caraain. Only those who swear allegiance to the Shadow will be spared the horrors to come. Those who faithfully serve the Great Lord will even be rewarded. You have spent your life walking under the ways of petty evil, murdering petty lords for other petty lords. Have you never thought of serving something greater? Give your soul to the Great Lord, Caraain! He can fashion you into a living weapon! He can give you an honored place in our victorious forces. All you have to do is kneel before him but once."  
  
Caraain dropped to her knees, overwhelmed with confusion and terror. Serve the Dark One? But that's just a myth. All this cannot be true....  
  
Suddenly Ba'alzamon had somehow crossed his desk, and seized her, violently pushing her around and then heaving her forward towards to the black flames of his hearth. Kicking and flailing about desperately, she could not break free. With Ba'alzamon's mocking laughter in her ears she found herself pushed ever closer to the flames.   
  
She noticed a carved stone figure now, placed among the flames, which she could have sworn had not been there before. It lay kneeling in the flames, hands frantically grasping the sides of its head. It was obviously convulsing in pain, screaming in agony. With each passing second, with each inexorable push towards the fireplace, she could more clearly discern its features: A beautiful and athletic young woman, with a face that had stared at her from the mirror every day. It was she. It was she who was carved into the figure amongst the flames!  
  
She shrieked in horror as Ba'alzamon threw her into the fire, ramming her into the carved figure. The fire that had heretofore seemed cold now seared her body with unimaginable heat. She writhed around as black flames latched on and strangled her. Over the din of her own mortification she heard a voice explode in her head  
  
SERVE ME, CARAAIN, AND LIVE LIFE EVERLASTING. OR REJECT ME, AND DIE IN DARKNESS.   
  
It was then she awoke, dull pain coursing through her body, drenched in cold sweat. She lay sprawled on the ground, facing upwards to gaze at a blood red sky.  
  
A terrifying specter of a face, pasty slug white and quite eyeless, appeared above her. "Who are you?" it demanded, the slithery grating of its voice sending shivers down Caraain's body.  
  



	5. Salvation

Caraain screamed and screamed as the tall man behind her roared with laughter, all the while kicking and shoving her into the blazing hearth. She raised her arms before her, shielding her face from the tongues of flames that lapped at her skin and scorched her. Despite her continuous pleas of desperation and for mercy, the man's voice boomed in her head and faded away into echoes.  
  
SERVE ME, CARAAIN. OR SUFFER THE WRATH OF BA'ALZAMON AND KNOW THE TRUE MEANING OF PAIN.  
  
Caraain's eyes snapped wide open, and she found herself not half-consumed in a fireplace, but staring up at the overhead canopy of trefoil leaves. There was a slight breeze which played with her silver-blonde hair strands across her face, and a fragrant scent that reminded her of olive trees. Her head throbbed and her ears pounded with the roar of her heart beating. Light, what a nightmare!, she thought to herself, closing her eyes once more as she gulped down air. Her throat was dry and raspy, but the air felt refreshingly cool to her. Its scent was tinged with the sweet fragrance of olive trees, and a pang of home sickness struck her as she thought about the fields upon fields of olive groves back at home in Aelgar. Then the corners of her lips twisted downwards sourly as her thoughts turned to something else. Ba'alzamon, appearing in my dreams? Hordes and hordes of Trollocs, camped in the middle of a forest? Light, what a day!   
  
Moving as little as possible -- the grass feels so good...so cool...between my fingers. Let me remain here for just a little longer, she thought to herself -- she turned her attention to the sky, wondering what time of day it was. The skies were a deep crimson, as if someone had slashed at the heavens and allowed them to bleed to the horizons. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, nor could she hear any animals calling. Caraain thought this a little strange, but put it away from her thoughts immediately, turning her attention to more urgent things.  
  
Light, what could it mean? Caraain shook her head to clear her thoughts. A dream of Trollocs--hundreds of them!--camped out not far from Manetheran. And the other. Ba'alzamon. Only a fool would call himself Ba'alzamon, she thought to herself. Even foolhardy children would not utter that name, nor....his master's. Only a fool would lay claim to such a name. She raised herself up onto her elbows, but suddenly let out a yelp of pain. Gingerly, she lifted her forearms to the level of her eyes and stared, sucking in slow breaths from clenched teeth. Her skin was burned to a crisp.  
  
Her mind raced as she tried to find explanations -- the dream, Caraain told herself immediately, but she refused to believe it, shoving that explanation to the deep corners of her mind. But no other logical reasons surfaced, and the dream with that laughing man kept returning to the forefront of her mind. No, it couldn't--! No! There was only the dim echoing of a man laughing in between her ears, and his furnace of a face, to taunt her. Only a fool would claim the name of Ba'alzamon, she thought slowly, unless it was Ba'alzamon himself. Only a madman would claim the name of Ba'alzamon, but only a man who could channel can appear in my dreams and do this to me. Caraain froze, her mind jarred to a halt. Ba'alzamon. He did this to me.  
  
She stared at it wonderingly, her lips pursed as she normally did while in deep thought. From her fingertips to her elbows, her arm was a mesh of patches of varying degrees of burned skin. A breeze blew just then, and as it hit her skin, she winced. Grayed and ashy flakes of skin broke away and flittered away in the breeze. Stabbing points of pain flashed through her arm, and though she tried to cradle both of her arms at once, still a thousand pin points of pain attacked her and made her want to weep.  
  
Suddenly, a sickeningly white gaunt face appeared over her. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Its voice had an edge like the huge serrated blade in its gauntleted hand, and told Caraain that it was not particularly in need of answers from her. It sent chills up Caraain's spine, like a file dragged across her vertebrae. Slowly, she looked up-- from the black spurred riding-boots to the dusty black pants, from the heavy-looking black coat that neither stirred nor swayed the slightest bit to the black snake-like plated armor, to the angry, eyeless face of death. Myrdraal, Caraain whispered under her breath.  
  
She leaped away just as its blade was swooping in a downwards arc towards her head, and struck into the thick knoll of grass. She scuttled backwards as the Myrdraal swung its sword at her menacingly, over and over again. It growled in contempt as it failed to decapitate her with each swing at her head. Finally, her own blade was free, and she desperately raised it to her head-- there was a clang and an explosion of white-blue sparks as her scimitar and the Myrdraal's own black blade met and quivered against each other. There's no way I can beat it in terms of strength, Caraain thought madly as she felt her own arm tremble under the force. Biting her lower lip, she swung her leg out low and fast and knocked the Myrdraal off its feet backwards. It fell to the ground with a crash, but rolled away as two of Caraain's throwing dirks immediately struck and stuck into the area it had just fallen. The two bounded to their feet immediately and turned to face each other.   
  
The Myrdraal hissed at her, imitating very closely the sound an angered and cornered cat makes. Caraain bit her lower lip, trying to put aside the pain that came each time she moved her crispened forearms, focusing all of her attention on the battle. One misstep and it's over, she thought grimly. Slowly they paced around in the form of a circle, their attention never leaving each other's. Caraain blinked, and instantly the Myrdraal charged at her, black blade gleaming. Caraain raised her scimitar as well, but realized too late that the Myrdraal had changed its form in mid stroke, turning its arcing descent into a forward strike. There was no time to change the parry, and time seemed to slow down as Caraain watched her own blade was knocked away from her hands easily, as if the Myrdraal was fighting with but a babe. She threw herself down and curled into a roll, and wound up behind the Myrdraal. I've got to get out of here!, she screamed inside her head.  
  
Suddenly, out of a nearby thrush, two slim streaks cut through the air, and landed between Caraain and the Myrdraal. Both looked down at the slim throwing blades, similair to Caraain's, with a surprised look on their face, and momentarily halted their battle to see a young man emerge from the thick bushes. In his hand was a slim, single-edged scimitar. His black hair was pulled back by an ornate black and red headband, and tied into a short ponytail. He looked straight at Caraain and the burn marks on her forearms and on her face, but his eyes seemed to widen when they landed on Caraain's own scimitar. Caraain similairly stared at the intricate black tattoos that wrapped around his midsides from his back and on his shoulders. "An Aelgar man," she breathed, disbelieving.  
  
"Are you hurt?" he asked Caraain, although his full attention was now on the Myrdraal. He stepped completely through the thicket now and went into the form Fisher-king Stalks The Pond, his blade raised high over his head and his empty hand outstretched in front of him in an open palm knife hand. The Myrdraal seemed to glare at this new intruder with fully clenched teeth, and spat in disgust. "Your time will come, wretch" it snarled, although Caraain wasn't sure whom it was referring to. "I will take great pleasure in skinning you alive myself," it added, and spun and bounded off in the opposite direction. Caraain and the other man stared at where it had disappeared behind a tree, and listened to its wake of cracking tree branches and muffled footsteps on grass until they were sure they were alone.   
  
The man sheathed his scimitar in a plain case that was tucked into the wide garish cloth that served as a belt, and retreived his two blades. "You're lucky to be alive," he told her. "Myrdraal do not like drawn-out battles, and I'm surprised you were not so intimidated that you would soil yourself." He chuckled at her as he readjusted the band on his forehead, but fell silent as he noticed her burns again. "Burn me, you look as if you just escaped a Trolloc cook pot. What happened to you?"  
  
He came closer to her and took her hand in his, scrutinizing her forearm. Caraain tried not to wince as he turned it over in his rough, ashy hands. She wanted to thank him. She wanted to ask him his name, and why he was dressed up like an Aelgar Navigator. She wanted to ask whether she WAS in Aelgar, and whether he knew how she came here. She wanted to tell him the story about the Trollocs and Ba'alzamon, if even just to hear him say she just had a ridiculous dream. But all Caraain could think of was the how the world had begun to spin and teeter and totter,and the vein in her forehead that felt like it was going to explose any minute now. She wobbled on her feet a little, and saw that he noticed.   
  
"Let's get you away from here, and to someone who can treat your burns," the man told her. He unwound the long length of fabric around his waist and emptied a canteen of water over it, soaking it. Then, the man wrapped them gently around her hands and up her arms, until it covered nearly all of her burned skin. The wet cloth was a relief to her skin even if it did expose her head and neck still. He easily picked her up and grinned at her as he carried her. East, southeast, Caraain thought, looking at the shadows of the olive groves. "My name is Torrin Malakai," he added. "What's your name?"  
  
Caraain scrunched up her face as she heard his name, and wondered why it sounded so familiar. She shrugged and leaned her head onto his chest. She could smell the light sweat from his bare barrel of a chest, but it was not displeasing. Rather, it reminded her of the salty spray of the seas by her small native fishing village of Almasen, in Aelgar. She smiled and closed her eyes, thinking of her parents. "Mine is Caraain. Caraain Bedell." With a sigh, she added more softly, "Thank you."  
  
The man grunted and fell silent, although when Caraain looked up at him she could not read anything on his face. Again she shrugged and lowered her head onto his neck. She was soon snoring softly as he carried her away from the groves, and the sun set on their backs, sending elongated, misshapen shadows before them on the road.   
  
  
  
  



	6. Color of Memory

"I want certain words more than a thousand flowers," a voice lilted quietly, in the darkness.   
  
Caraain's eyes fluttered open at the sound of a young woman singing. Where am I?, she wondered, without moving. She felt herself surrounded by soft, warm bed linens, and her own body was swathed in cool silks. The sweet scent of olive trees wafted in on a refreshing breeze through an open window to her left. A night owl hooted once, and fell silent.   
  
"Memory rubs in my heart like sand on my feet  
My heart is frozen tonight like blue coral in the sea," the voice chirped again.   
  
Caraain observed her from the corners of her eyes. The voice belonged to a young girl, about fifteen years old, plump and rosy-cheeked. Her chestnut hair was braided neatly down her back in a thick rope. It swung to and fro as she took some folded small clothes off a shelf on a far wall, and put them into a wicker basket. The room was exquisitely furnished, and illuminated by the yellow light from numerous flickering candles. On a nearby chair, Caraain's former clothes were folded and apparently cleaned of their stains, and all visible tears and rips were mended, sewn expertly. Curious.   
  
"I feel I'm alone again in the heat wave.   
I wish we could meet again, you are already miles away."   
  
Caraain strained her ears to catch the lyrics of the girl's song. It was familiar, a distant but pleasant memory. It was a folk song-- from Aelgar? But how did I get here? She shifted her weight onto her elbows and tried to sit up. She had to make sure about the---  
  
The mattress underneath her gave a loud squeak!, and she hissed at the same time the girl's breath caught. "I'm so sorry, missus," she said, abandoning her chore, "I didn't realize I was so loud."   
  
Caraain shook her head and waved her hand as the girl came to her bedside. "No, no, child, it was nothing." Child? She's less than ten years younger than I! "What were you singing there? What is your name? Where am I now?"   
  
A look of pained confusion crossed the girl's face, and she curtsied abruptly, bobbing her head. "It's 'Flowers,' missus; a popular song for this time of year. My name is Rhyodin. Rhyodin Altena. And you're in the home of Lord Torrin Malakai, not too far from Anchohima. That's him on the wall."   
  
Rhyodin pointed at a nearby painting, framed in luxurious fox-wood. A young man, with noble, angular features. He was garbed in the traditional costume of Aelgar's secretive Assassins' House: a black, snug two-piece trimmed with a deep red. A black face mask and hood hung around his neck, and a scimitar was gripped, white-knuckled, in his large powerful-looking hands. A pair of throwing dirks was held in the other. It was the same young lord who saved her earlier from the Myrdraal, she was sure. But why was he so familiar?   
  
"He's a fine sight, isn't he, missus?" Rhyodin cooed at the painting.   
  
"I suppose," Caraain replied. Though this Lord Torrin certainly was handsome, it was in the same way a candle flame draws a moth. There was nothing in the man's features that was attractive, to her. Something about this was all very familiar, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it. It was déjà vu, perhaps? Caraain raised her arm to rub her throbbing temples, and notice her forearms.   
  
"Yes, we salved and bandaged your burns all right, missus," Rhyodin beamed. Caraain stared at the wrappings which covered her hands and ended at the base of her elbow. They certainly did feel much better. The burns? The same ones that.... Ba'alzamon gave me? She gasped under her breath. The Dark One's touch is upon me.   
  
Caraain swung her legs around to the side of the bed, sending her platinum-blonde hair into a flurry around her. "I must go! Quick, child, my clothes! My sword!" Caraain blinked and stared at the space around her. She spun on Rhyodin, who had gone stiff with confusion. "My blade! My scimitar! What have you done with it?"   
  
It seemed a long moment before Rhyodin fully recovered herself. "Your...sword, missus? That was YOUR weapon?" Caraain could see the shock plainly on Rhyodin's face. Female fighters were an absurd concept, no matter where Caraain had gone, though no one seemed to know why. It was even rarer to find one carrying a blade, let alone one issued directly from the Aelgar Assassins' House. Such things were simply not done, Caraain could read her thoughts.   
  
"Please, missus. Stay awhile and be our guest. You are in the home of Lord Torrin Malakai, and it would be a great injustice were you to leave before he could meet you formally. I assure you, you are... more than suitably protected here." Her hands gripped on her braid nervously.   
  
Of course. No one would directly reveal to a complete stranger that they were in the home of a trained killer. Not even Aelgar's citizens completely knew the truth of the existence of such a Trade House. Who knew what other Houses existed? Caraain sighed and allowed herself to fall back into bed and be tucked underneath the comforters once more. This Lord Torrin was an Aelgar Assassin, as Caraain once was. Certainly he might be able to answer her questions, and provide food and shelter, if even for a little while. A blood oath at their initiation demanded it. Ba'alzamon and the Dark One be damned. I'm home in Aelgar, I'm certain of it now. I'm home again.   
  
She turned and faced Rhyodin, who continued to tug at her braid. What an odd quirk, she observed. Nevertheless, a smile drew on her lips for what felt like the first time in a long while.   
  
"One other thing, girl. I mean...Rhyodin. My name is Caraain. Caraain Bedell." Rhyodin's eyes widened momentarily, but disappeared quickly enough. What in the Light did that mean? "Please call me by my first name. Not 'Missus'."   
  
Rhyodin hesitated before answering. "I can't do that, missus. Not until my lord says it's all right. You are his guest, and to treat a guest with less-than-proper respect would be unthinkable." Caraain tried not to roll her eyes. "If I may go back to my chores, missus?"   
  
Caraain nodded slightly, and Rhyodin bobbed another curtsy and returned to her wicker basket full of small clothes, and, shortly after, her song. Caraain closed her eyes, but did not sleep. Instead, she listened to the melody and its lyrics, and tried to remember where she last heard them both.   
  
"Color of memory, bright as a field of flowers,   
and just as impermanent as scattered petals in the wind."   
  
  
  



	7. Slow Recognition

Smoke wafted up into the rafters of the inn, soaking the timber walls and furnishings with the pungent scent of Manetheran tabac. A piper's morose music droned in the background of the common room, as an amateur juggler attempted to amuse the inn's patrons, and failed miserably. The patrons in the Red Fsihmonger Inn were not interested in being amused, as they were all too occupied in drowning themselves in watered-down ale, and carousing with the local prostitutes.  
  
Torrin Malakai ignored them all. He sat at a corner of the bar, ignoring the full glass of mead that was placed in front of him. The bartender eyed him but said nothing. He was a rough-looking bald man with large muscles protruding from a worn shirt that, at one time in a former life, may have been white once. In this part of town nobles were not often found, but Lord Torrin's gold was as good here as any other place. It was unusual, though, that he never showed up here with a bodyguard. Here, of all places, the rich feared to tread, especially without hired muscle.  
  
"I KNOW her, I'm sure of it," Torrin muttered to himself, or, quite possibly, to the barkeep. Women problems, thought the bartender as he continued to wipe a mug with a rag that looked like it needed cleaning itself.  
  
"It's as if she is from a distant dream... or a childhood nightmare. We were cadets together, in...training," he continued. "In Almasen, about seven years ago."  
  
The bartender raised his eyebrows slightly. It took an awful lot to surprise him, and this was beyond surprising. "You were there? Isn't that right around the time of the massacres there?"  
  
For the first time since ordering his drink, Torrin looked up, bleary-eyed but his gaze still as sharp and unsettling as a hawk's. "Massacres?" He thought for a moment, biting his lower lip. "Yes, that's right. I'd nearly forgotten all about that."  
  
"Forgotten?" cried a nearby patron. "How could any one have forgotten? Thirty five men, each of them supposedly of the Assassins, were killed there! Dozens of others were also found there, dead or dying. It was a tragedy, if I'm correct."  
  
"Naw," guffawed the bartender. "There's no such thing as the Assassins. But you're right about them numbers." He turned to Torrin, and leaned closer. "What were you doing there? How'd you get away? The entire place was a bonfire to be seen from miles around. It's them blasted Northerners' fault, I'm sure. All those lives, just for a settlement over territory."  
  
"Huh, nothing there but leagues and leagues of empty fields, if you ask me," said the patron at the same time. "'Specially now, since people on both sides of the border are too scared to move in." The patrons gathered around the bar, shook their heads together.   
  
"I told you," slurred Torrin, "It was training. Nothing else there."   
  
"Whot, assassin training?" asked an anonymous voice. Torrin froze and eyed the people around them. Other nearby patrons seemed to have heard and a dangerous palll fell across the space around Torrin. There was a hestitant edge in the air.   
  
"Yeah, that's it," Torrin said, slowly, and chuckled. An audible sigh of relief was heard around the bar, as if someone had just reminded them they could exhale again. He fished a fat gold mark from the inside of his coat and flipped the coin towards the bartender. "That's for me," he said, arranging his belt and brushing his long black hair away from his eyes, "and also for the rest of the bar. Drinks are on me till that coin's used up."  
  
Numerous eyes oggled the thick coin as it spun in the air as a hurragh erupted from the bar. The bartender carefully pocketed the fat mark, replying, "Right then. Good night, Lord Torrin" over the din of the crowds. Torrin stepped away from the crowds and out the tavern doors. Behind him, two people also got up from their stools and followed him out the door....  
  
  
----------------------  
  
  
"Hey! Hey you! Pretty boy!"  
  
Torrin turned outside of the bar to face to cutpurses in front of him. They physically looked like rats, with thick bulging noses and beady, yellowish eyes. Their clothes were torn and stained with blood in some spots, most of it not their own blood. Torrin shrugged and put a pipe in his mouth, and lit it.  
  
The two thieves looked at each other. Is he mocking us? they thought to each other. With a grunt, they came closer to Torrin and surrounded him.  
  
"We saw that nice little purse you've got, and wondered if you had any more in there, little man," the bigger of the two said. Torrin inhaled from his pipe, and the embers glowed a menacing magenta red in the twilight. "I think we ought to help lighten that load of his, eh, brother?" The smaller of the thieves snickered from behind Torrin.  
  
With a blur, Torrin Malakai threw his leg up, catching the thief in front of him where his legs met, sending him to the ground with a gasp. At the same time, he threw a knuckled backhand at the smaller of the two before he had any time to react. It caught him squarely in the jaw, bloodying his mouth instantly.   
  
With another blur, Torrin threw a chop at the base of the larger one's neck that resulted in a loud crack. That one fell forward onto his face soundlessly. The younger smaller brother stared wide-eyed, and aghast.  
  
"Leave me alone," Torrin said, nonchalantly. He poked his finger into the would-be assailant's chest with each word, and then spun on his heels and continued down the street. It was nearing dusk, so there were not too many eyes on him. The few that were though, stared openly and quickly hustled out of his way.  
  
Already, a few stars dotted the eastern horizon, although the sky was still only a pale lavender color. "So that's where she's from," thought Torrin. "She's the only one to escape that place." He took another deep breath from his pipe full of tabac and exhaled. "The only one, that is, besides me. I should have double-checked."  
  
  
  
  



	8. Meeting Lord Rhyodin

Caraain wrung her hands nervously as she stared out the window. It had been three days now that she had stayed with this mysterious young lord, Torrin Malakai. And not once had she been able to meet her host. There was always some excuse, according to Rhyodin anyways, and it seemed that this Torrin person was certainly a busy individual indeed. Her hands felt clammy and were ice cold as she stared out the window. For the forth night in a row.   
  
Even before she knocked on the door, Caraain could hear Rhyodin's heavy footsteps on the stone steps outside. Thay had placed her in a tower room, peaked with an onion-shaped bulb atop. There were only two ways out: through the heavy oaken doors, or through the window. Despite the fine furnishings, Caraain had the strange suspicion that they were trying to keep her in. It would have been easy enough to climb out the window but Caraain was not about to leave her scimitar or her other tools behind. And she had yet to meet this Torrin.   
  
Rhyodin knocked again a second time on the door. "Missus? Are you in there? Are you decent now?"   
  
Caraain sighed and turned from the window. Of course she was decent; she may have been raised in Aelgar, but not even the prostitute women would lounge around all day without clothes. That was another thing. Caraain had somehwo appeared in Aelgar wearing only servant's clothes, a disguise for a mission that seemed so long ago. They were dusty, sweat-stained, torn, and ripped in numerous place, but even those would have been more comfortable than the ones her host, or rather, Rhyodin, provided. They were a little too snug and revealing for her taste. She sighed, and adjusted her top, a tiny silk something that looked like a bustier. "Yes, Rhyodin. Enter."   
  
The heavy door swung in and Rhyodin's head appeared, her eyes downcast just in case. "The master is in, missus." Caraain turned, trying to hide her surprise. "He's in the dining room, requesting your presence." With a jerk of her thick braid, she indicated that she was to come with her.   
  
As Caraain followed, she saw at the bottom of the long and winding stone stairwell two armed guards. They wore entirely black clothes, trimmed with red, and with no steel armor pieces other than the guantlets and shin-guards. They wore no visible blades, but she knew that these two didn't necessarily need any weapons in order to be deadly. Assassins, Caraain thought, then froze. She observed at the fringes of their belt a thick white band. They were only apprentices. They have obviously underestimated me, Caraain thought, and felt reassured. I could take them out if necessary, with little effort. She strode by them with the mein of a full-born lady and sniffed at them. Apprentices~! Huh!   
  
At a close distance behind, the two guards followed, their shin-guards clanking and echoing down the hallways.   
  
  
--------------------------  
  
  
Lord Torrin of House Malakai sipped the red wine as he stared forward, blankly, at the heavily-etched door in front of him. It was bittersweet and had a heady aroma that filled his nose not unpleasantly. He could hear their noises ringing down the hall and pricked his ears to listen. Judging by what he heard, there was a girl...and two men?...wearing armor. Rhyodin and two armed guards. The one he was awaiting, though, made no sound at all. He composed himself, and sat up straight in his chair. If she is the one, he thought to himself, I will kill her myself, here and now.   
  



	9. Recalling the Young Man

Dinner had been awkward, at best. Full of long and unbroken silences, the two supped at their dinner quietly, though refusing to show it. Rhyodin twitched and looked as though she wanted to be elsewhere throughout the length of the meal, and was relieved when the two had stood from the dinner table and retired to the lounging room. She practically lunged at the empty dishes to clear the table, just so she'd have an excuse to be elsewhere.   
  
The lounging room was vast and spacious, every wall panelled with fine fox-wood, which could only be imported from the Borderlands. The large windows reached to the ceiling and were draped with a gauzy white curtain which seemed to Caraain to be the same material as that of the shawl around her neck. The ceiling had a strange mural on it, with numerous animals Caraain had never before seen, animals of all shapes and sizes and types. It was an absurd painting, whimsical and fantastic in nature. But still she stared up at it in wonder.   
  
"What are these animals," she asked him, in awe.   
  
Torrin glanced upwards at them for a minute, and returned to fixing drinks for himself and Caraain. "Strange, aren't they? I had it done by the Restorers guild onl a few months ago. I'm still not sure whether they made it all up or not, but they better not have, for the sum I paid them."   
  
Caraain nodded dumbly, still staring. The Restorers were a strange group, it was agreed by all of Aelgar's citizens. They would have been called madmen had they not unlocked so many secrets from before the Breaking and beyond. Half the time they were called lunatics under hushed breath, the other half hailed for their fine work. It was with their knowledge that the Navy had become the most efficient and largest in the known world (save the Seafolk, of course), and it was with their relics and ancient notes that the Alchemists were founded. Still, many of the things they knew and documented were still hard to swallow. The world split up into seven continents? Ridiculous!   
  
Torrin handed Caraain a drink in a crystal glass. "Here, take a sip." Caraain turned and looked at him, and put the glass down on a nearby stand.   
  
"No, thank you, Lord. There's something I need to ask you." Torrin looked at the glass on the table grimly, but changed his face as he looked back up at her. He was all coolness and total composure.   
  
"Yes, yes, of course; but first, are you enjoying yourself here?"   
  
Caraain nodded, lying. There was absolutely nothing to do here. Her burned flesh had scabbed ober and fallen away days ago. Her wounds and scrapes were all healed, and her muscles ached for nothing more than to take off. "You are a most gracious host, my Lord." She looked away from him.   
  
"But...?"   
  
Caraain pursed her lips in thought, then bit her lower lip in hesitation. After a moment's pause, she set her jaw firmly and regarded him with cool level eyes. Her arms moved slowly, ritually, through complex motions and forms. "'Daybreak unto dusk, and ashes unto blood. I serve the blade and dance upon the razor's edge, and fear neither man nor beast...'"   
  
" '...So long as I may live under the Light's warmth, so do I swear,'" Torrin finished for her. They stared at each other, wonderingly, both their suspicions confirmed. "So," he said finally, "You are an Assassin."   
  
"Not unlike yourself, it seems," Caraain nodded. "I am Caraain Bedell, daughter of Tuvix and Amarin Bedell, trained by Master Godai. Under Assassin oath, I ask you to shelter me in my time of peril."   
  
Torrin set his drink down and stood, placing his hand across his torso at his side, where his blade would be, completing the formal stance. "I am Torrin Malakai, son of Rhoduin and Karil Malakai, trained too by Master Godai. I greet you and welcome you in my home."   
  
They stared at each other, until Caraain exhaled, and sat down on a nearby couch. She covered her face as tears brimmed down her eyes. "So you survived also." Her voice was no more than a whisper. "I was beginning to think that all of Master Godai's pupils were gone at Alamasen."   
  
"You must have been very brave and strong, to face all of those invaders," Torrin said, flatly. He continued to stand.   
  
"No." Caraain choked on her tears, and her cheeks became flushed easily with color. "I heard the soldiers, saw the numbers and ran. I killed a few of them, but I did not fight alongside my comrades. I just ran off, and watched them kill all of us. Kill him...." Her voice trailed away in tears. Caraain inhaled deeply, trying to compose herself. "Oh, Marduke!"   
  
Torrin's eyebrow quirked upwards, and he sat down, next to her. "You knew Marduke?" He stared into her eyes, searching.   
  
Caraain nodded, ashamed that she would lose herself to her emotions so easily. The memory of the massacre at Almasen was a wound to deep to keep bound forever, a wound so wide it would never heal.   
  
"Marduke and I were lovers," she said, looking up. Caraain wondered why he had gone pale all of a sudden. Perhaps he knew him as a friend, she thought. "Like everyone in our troop, we were all assassins-to-be. Fighters, warriors. I remembered packing for the trip to Almasen, worrying that I wouldn't be up to the grueling tasks and challenges before us. Marduke consoled me, made me feel more confident about my skills, loved me. 'We will be together,' I remember him saying. 'And that is all that matters. We can make it, no matter what.'   
  
"I think you remember Almasen as I did, when we first arrived after a gruelling five-day hike north. It was nothing more than a run-down outpost. A tiny settlement in the middle of nowhere, halfway lost to weeds and plants that nearly overran the walls and cracks. Funny how it should be the last defense and claim to a barren flat stretch of land against Safer.   
  
"I also think you remember the hard pace that Master Godai set before us. Few of us made that pace, even fewer still excelled above that mark he set. And Marduke and I made them all. Togeher." She sobbed, as she recalled his soft features, far too rounded and bright-eyed to be a warrior. He was gorgeous; he was beautiful enough to be a prince.   
  
"Go on," said Torrin. He shivered, his face and hands devoid of blood. Is it she? Is it really the one I adored? I must kill her, to protect the secret! But.... what if it IS her? He shivered once again. I have to ask! He paused, and stared at her face, reading every expression, analyzing every gesture. "There was...someone, I recall. Did someone else not love you there too? Did someone not vie for your affections as well?"   
  
Caraain stared at him. "Y-yes, I remember now. A young man, who was shorter than the others. Spoiled, but a skilled assassin. He sent me letters every day, stared at me openly. It was... uncomfortable, I suppose. I had no interest for him, when my heart was meant for another. Why do you ask?"   
  
"It is nothing," Torrin snapped. Then, more softly, "I'm sorry. Please continue with your story. I was just trying to remember things. It is very dim to me. What else do you remember?"   
  
"About him? Nothing. But all else I recall came from the night of the ambush, and, I suppose, the massacre. Someone from Safer had infiltrated us, or one of our own betrayed us. But the latter is unthinkable. But someone must have alarmed the Safer border troops. I don't know if they saw our presence as a threat, or it was a random onslaught, but they attacked the tiny backwoods settlement at Alamasen. We were far too outnumbered to protect them there."   
  
"Marduke and I, as well as a handful of others, were in the nearby foothills when we first smelled the smoke. One of us climbed the trees, and discovered fires lighting up the entire village! By that time most of the killing had already ended, I suppose. We could have gotten away. We should have gotten away. But our oaths to our comrades and the Assassin's code would not permit us to do so. Of course we returned. We had no idea of the numbers there. It seemed like thousands, though it was most likely several hundred. Several hundred heavily armed troops! To take care of a settlement of less than three hundred, including us! We never had a chance.   
  
"We charged them fully, despite our strengths and skills at stealth. I remember seeing the first of us fall. He was no older than fifteen. An arrow took out his eye, and several lit arrows followed soon after. The scent of his flesh cooking as he rolled on the ground was sickeningly sweet. He...he was just fifteen.   
  
"We continued on fighting. We were killed one by one by one, from a distance and then up close, when they surrounded us and closed in on all sides. We killed many of them, but they eradicated us. I saw Marduke's head lopped off by a man on a horse with an axe. After that, I turned and ran. I broke through their ring, and escaped. I still don't know how lucky I was that day, but I kept thanking the Light as I ran and ran for the cover of the forest by those foothills.   
  
"I climbed the trees, and cried and cried as I nursed my wounds. I watched the Safer troops drag off the rest of our comrades from the field like tiny ants. I saw them bring them into the town, stacked them into a small mountain that was visible to me from even my perch. Then I recall them lighting the entire town aflame, and seeing the Safer troops file in and just cross back over to their side of the border without a second thought."   
  
Caraain sobbed softly into her gauze shawl, occassionally choking on her own tears. It was a long moment before Torrin dared to move from his seat. He stood up and readjusted his embroidered red coat, and ran a hand through his fine black hair. He coughed discreetly.   
  
"That was...quite a story. Thank you. You are welcome here for as long as you need to," he said, and turned and walked towards the doors. "Good night. I shall see you again."   
  
"Torrin," Caraain called out to him. Torrin paused, but did not turn around. "What happened to you during the massacres? How did you survive? Where were you?"   
  
Torrin walked to the doors and opened one of them. It creaked noisily. "I just ran," he said, and closed the door quietly behind him, leaving Caraain alone in the room.   
  



	10. Reclamation of One's Property

Lord Torrin Malakai leaned on the heavy doors as soon as he closed them behind him. He gripped the heavy brass doorknobs with whitened knuckles and steadied himself against the doorframe. If I let go, he thought, I will most definitely fall flat on my face. Around him, the room appeared to spin and blur.   
  
So she is the one. "Caraain Bedell," he said aloud, trying the feel of his tongue as he said her name. Caraain Bedell. Burn her for this!   
  
We were comrades, but you chose to love that....that...OTHER man. I was shrugged aside, cast away! For a penniless pretty boy! How could you choose him over me, Caraain? He bit on his lower lip, clenching his eyes to stop the tears from pouring forth.   
  
He inhaled deeply. I told you I'd kill that man. That Marduke. I got rid of everything that stood between you and I, and still I did not have your heart. Burn you for that! "Burn you!," he screamed at the doors, though he knew they were far too thick for her to hear through.   
  
I made a small fortune and earned myself a title selling my services to the other lords and ladies of the court. Without the rest of the other Assassins under Master Godai, I amassed wealth and power beyond comprehension. If word gets out that I was the one who informed the Safer border troops of our location, I am doomed!   
  
Torrin reached for a small dagger that he kept at his side, and unsheathed it. With clenched teeth, he quickly drew it across the palm of his left hand. He made a fist with that hand, and watched the blood dribble down the side of his arm and splatter onto the fine patterned tiles.   
  
"I swear a blood oath that I will kill you, Caraain Bedell. I will see you dead before me, and I WILL HAVE YOU!, if even for once only. This I swear."   
  
Without another word, he sheathed his dagger and turned on his heels, his footsteps echoing hollowly down the empty hall.   



	11. A Different Thread

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  
Forgive me for this one discrepancy, but I'm afraid that the events in this story have to take a back seat as I focus on a new character, Tam al'Vorath.  
When this story was originally done, as a story arc between me and another roleplayer on the Trolloc Wars RP website, our characters worked in synch to weave this story. Tam al'Vorath was this other player's character. A bounty hunter raised in the Borderlands, Tam is not the best tracker and seeker around, but he's a damn good one. He was first hired in Manetheren to hunt down Caraain's trail, after the rest of the manor (in Chapter 1) discovered their lord murdered. Tam had managed to follow the trail as far as Aelgar, and even to the destroyed village of Almasen (described in Chapters 9 and 10) although Caraain is still nowhere near there.  
Don't worry; these stories are done in real-time, and are running alongside each other's. Eventually, I'll fix up and re-do Tam's story here. His author, unfortunately, wasn't very good; his grammar, punctuation, and especially spelling errors are almost painful to look at. For now, however, we'll follow Tam for a while.  
BTW, this was a chapter done by Tam's own character.... I tried fixing it up, but after half an hour of revisions, I simply gave up.  
  
--------------------  
  
  
It had beenTam's head hurt. But at least he was alive to feel the hurt.   
  
Tam had entered the burned out building to shelter himself from the rain. The  
storm came up too fast for Tam to make a proper shelter for himself. Upon  
entering the building he noticed some fire light dancing upon the ash-darkened  
walls. This Almasen was supposed to be abandoned. He drew his sword out slowly,  
holding it with the blade toward the ground, while with the other hand he pulled  
out a long dagger. The sword was a bit too long for sneaking around corners. He  
moved through the charred hallways, making his way slowly toward the fire. Tam  
was close now. Around the next wall and he would be facing the fire, and whomever was tending it. He turned his sword upside right and made ready to throw  
his dagger if needs be. He moved around the corner carefully yet quickly, and  
found himself facing......nothing! Just a pot over a fire. Tam got over his  
shock quickly and turned hiself around just in time to see a man, his hair and  
skin dark with soot, coming out of a wall. Then everything went black.  
  
When he came to, Tam's head still hurt. But he was glad to be alive even if it  
meant living with the pain. He was tied and leaned up agianst one of the walls.  
Tam looked around, carefully analysing every wall. Making sure his attacker  
wasn't still around. Satisfied that he was alone, Tam grabed the sleeve of his  
tunic. It was gone!! Tam kept a sharp, tiny blade sewn up in the cuff of his  
sleeve just in case he ever found himself bound with ropes. That way all he had  
to do was grab his sleeve, and he could use the blade to cut any ropes within  
reach. One severed cord was quite often could be the difference between freedome  
or captivity. Who ever had tied Tam up knew his bussiness.  
  
About three hours latter Tam's captor entered the room. He was an old man.  
Probably about 75-80 years old. They just sat and stared at each other. After  
some time the old man broke the silence. "My name is Godai. Who are you? 


	12. Godai, Master Assassin

Master Jyun Godai stared long and hard at the intruder across the room. The fire pit that sat in the center of the room, underneath an exposed area in the straw-covered roof, was extinguished, although the bed of coals appeared magenta in the darkened shelter. It gave Godai a menacing glow in his penetrating glare, Tam observed.   
  
"I ask again, stranger," Godai said again, simply but firmly. "Who are you? What do you seek here?" He moved slowly then, around the coal pit, not looking at Tam, but instead intent on the pot that hovered over the embers.   
  
He's a fool to not watch his own prisoner, Tam thought, but then paused. No-- there's something about him. An... edge in his gait, I suppose. Something I've only seen in Warders and Borderlanders. Tam squinted in the darkness at his captor, struggling against the thick triple-wrapped bonds that chafed against his wrists.   
  
"Relax, lad. You won't be getting out of those anytime soon." The man who called himself Master Godai-- though a master of what, Tam hadn't the faintest-- looked at him then, and smiled. "Looking for this?" He held up a slim, hand's length of metal, the blade that Tam had concealed and lost in a hidden fold of his cuffs. He stared at it openly. "It's a fine blade, although where you hid it was quite predictable."  
  
He lifted the lid of the beaten, dented pot over the embers, and a strange smell wafted over to Tam. He scrunched his nose up involuntarily. What a foul stench--!  
  
"It's my dinner, boy-- Beets soaked in sweet Mossflower," he said, as though reading Tam's mind. "Now, boy, are you going to speak, or are you just going to sulk and stare at me like some moon-eyed girl?" He then started to laugh uproariously, although Tam didn't think the joke was that funny.  
  
"My name is Tam...," he began slowly. Godai fell silent, and arched an eyebrow at him. "Tam Al'vorath." Godai casually tossed the blade at Tam, although it sank skillfully just inches before where Tam's legs met. "Untie yourself, then, Tam. And follow me."  
  
Tam squirmed around until he was able to pick up the blade with his hands behind his back, and neatly slice the thick braided cord apart. As he continued to sit on the dusty ground, rubbing at his red-marked wrists, he watched Godai stand and exit into another room.  
  
He followed him, ducking his head as he passed through the door's archway, into a pitch-black room. Although there was light to still see by, the entire room was pitch black with soot and char. Debris still littered the floor. Was this what remained from that incident so long ago? Tam wondered about this, silently.  
  
"This is yours, I believe." Godai opened a black wooden trunk in a corner, revealing Tam's own sword and overcloak, as well as some of his personal effects. He picked them up carefully, and handed the neatly-folded pile to Tam. "I've heard of you, boy. You're quite the ...bounty hunter... to have made news even this far south."  
  
Tam nodded slowly, then, feeling this was not enough, added, "Thank you, sir. I would like to ask you some questions, if you don't mind."  
  
Godai looked at Tam again, silently and seriously, all of a sudden, then erupted into bellows of laughter. "What for, lad? For this?" His sweeping, open arm gestures suggested the room, and their entire surroundings. "If it's the so-called massacres you want to know about, I'm afraid you're about fifteen years too late!"   
  
In spite of himself, Tam cracked a smile at the corner of his lips at this.  
  
"So, what is it you want to know, Tam? Ask me... in here." Godai ducked once again into yet another room. Tam followed, adjusting his tunic as he refastened his swordbelt... and stopped in midstride.  
  
Whereas the two other rather nondescript rooms were bare and their walls still soot-streaked, this next room was a plethora of color. Paintings and untouched stretched canvases lined this largest room, as well as huge sheets of paper with extensive sketches and watercolors on them.   
  
Godai slapped Tam on the back. "A man's got to have a hobby, doesn't he? It's good for us-- right here." With a solemn nod, he beat a thick, leather-gloved fist to his chest. "Art is the other coordinated skill of the extensively-trained hand and eye."  
  
Tam nodded at this. "Interesting, old man. So what is the first?"  
  
"Old man? Hah!" Godai seemed pleased by this jest. If he's going to call me "lad" and "boy" all day long, I can give as good as I can take, Tam thought. Godai picked up a sword that Tam hadn't even seen as he came into the room. "Why, that one's killing. Now, what do you want to know?" 


	13. Background Moving to Foreground

Tam watched intently as Master Godai, garbed in a makeshift smock made from a charred leather smith's apron, mixed paints in cracked clay bowls. "Art is a wonderful thing, a skill to be in awe of," murmured Godai. Tam nodded his head, although he did feel somewhat uncomfortable. What was this madman doing here?   
  
Godai lifted his fine, lacquered brush and let it hover inches from a painting that was still in its beginning stages. It was of an Aelgar woman dancing, gauzy silk veil swaying as she smiled coyly at some unseen object off the canvas. Her moccha colored skin appeared to glow as she twirled in a garishly-colored dress. Although it was only composed of rough patches of color, Tam could still feel his cheeks starting to burn as he caught himself staring at the woman in the painting's steamy gaze.   
  
He stepped away from Godai at his easel and looked at some of the other sketches and paintings that lined the expansive room. Stacks of sheets full of tiny scribbles occupied every counter and tabletop in the room, and dozens of stretched canvases waited to be finished painting. Some were already finished, and Tam judged them in his eye. He did not pretend to know anything about art, but he knew what he liked.   
  
"You do good work, old man," he said. There was an grunt of thanks, of appreciation, from Godai, who seemed absorbed in a particularly intricate area in the painting. "You must find many things out here to occupy your imagination and fascination here."   
  
The was a thoughtful pause in the room, filled only with the sounds of a brush scratching against the canvas. "Actually," began Godai, "it gets quite... boring after a while. After over fifteen years here, you soon run out of things to look at. There's only so many ways to paint a flaming tree, after all."   
  
Tam spun around. "What did you say?"   
  
Godai stared at him from the corner of his eye. "Trees, boy. There's only... hmm--- a dozen or so varieties this far south, and--"   
  
"No, no," Tam shook his head. "You lived here? Fifteen years ago? Then that-- that means you were around during the massacres here! Are there any more of you here? Why have you been here for so long?"   
  
Godai paused his brush mid-stroke, then quietly put it down, in a separate bowl of clear water, which clouded over quickly with red paint. "That's enough for today," he said simply. He started to move on into the next room, but Tam grabbed his shoulder.   
  
"I'm serious, old man! You call yourself 'Master'-- A 'master' of what, exactly? I doubt it has anything to do with this!" He swung his arm angrily behind him, indicating the paints and sketches in the room. "Tell me what I need to know."   
  
Godai stared hard into his eyes. Tam tried not to avert his gaze. Suddenly, Godai moved, his movements a blur-- he threw his arm over Tam's own, still clutching at the shoulder, and locked Tam's arm easily at the elbow. With his free arm, Godai pinched at a specific pressure point on Tam's wrist, and twisted. Tam screamed more in shock than in pain and fell to his knees, at Godai's mercy. It had all taken place in less time it took to blink an eye. Tam breathed slowly and carefully through clenched teeth, trying hard not to move his arm, even for an inch. It was twisted awkwardly and held simply with Godai's two fingers. It was humiliating and scary at the same time.   
  
"Once, I was Master Assasin for the rightful king of these lands," Godai stated impassively. Tam looked once again at Godai, his mind racing. What?? "In years past, I was responsible for hundreds of executions of anyone who was deemed a threat to the throne of Aelgar. I am a direct descendant of the man who originally founded the secret and former Trade House for Assassins. I was also their last leader and teacher." He let go of Tam's arm, and Tam found himself cradling it tenderly.   
  
"Do you know what you're telling me, Master Godai? Do you realize the importance of the things you are telling me? I could have you arrested as responsible for all of those crimes you committed in the past! I--" Tam faded away as he saw Godai shaking his head.   
  
"We were paid fairly for a service by those skillful and powerful enough to know about us. We simply carried it out. We were sanctioned secretly by the throne and by the Trade House commissions. The House of Assassins was as viable a trade as the Navigators' and the Restorers'." Godai sat down on a nearby chair, and sunk miserably in it. "Not that it matters anymore."   
  
"How do you mean?"   
  
"It's over! It's all been wiped out, lad!" Godai tried hard to control his voice. "Fifteen years ago, we were training here in Almasen. It was a normal practice for us to train out here in the rural areas, where not many eyes and ears could observe the doings of a secret House. One night... one night, we were overrun by border guards from the country north of us. Somebody must have told them about us, for the normal citizenry of Almasen were too stupid, too pointless to be considered a threat."   
  
"Yes," Tam nodded. "I heard the story on my way here from passing people. I was told that everyone here was killed and burned in a giant bonfire that consumed the entire town." Godai nodded, solemnly. "But it doesn't explain why you're still alive, Master Godai."   
  
Godai sneered, then spat. "It takes more than that to kill of a true master assassin. As far as I know, there's just me left, though a handful of my students could reasonably still be out there. I'm sure you would agree with me, Tam. I've heard about your exploits. You would have made a fine student of mine, had I known you back then. Back when there was a House at all."   
  
Tam stared at him quietly. After a long silence, he asked, "There was something I heard...back in an in at the capitol. The Assassin's House is still present.... In Ancohima, there were rumors of Assassin activity. I thought I would check them out after my present case, but... but... didn't you know?"   
  
Godai stared at him as if Tam had said the most absurd thing in the world, and then erupted into laughter. That's a good one boy. Serves me right for staying out here in the flaming backwaters for so long. Your lead may yet be true, or it may be a shadow of a rumor of a half-lie. Who can say?" Godai smiled, and shrugged. "So tell me. According to your source, who is the new leader of the Assassins?"   
  
"Torkin... Torvin...." Tam struggled on the unfamiliar name, but saw he needed to go no further when Godai's eyes grew wide.   
  
"Torrin," Godai finished for him. "Torrin Malakai. Huh! Burn me, that snake's still alive?" Godai rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then looked at Tam. "Torrin was good... very good. His heart was twisted and his head was too big for his own good. He was also as conniving as the most conspiring lord. Actually," he added, "I believe he was a lord himself. Huh! How fitting...." He rubbed his chin again, and turned to Tam. "What case?"   
  
It took Tam a moment to realize what he was talking about. "I've been sent to investigate the death of a lord on the outskirts of Manetheran. And the death of a hired guard on this same lord's estates."   
  
"Manetheran?" Godai chuckled. "You've come a long way indeed, if you're still working on a case like that."   
  
"Yes. It's strange. The killings were completely ruthless. Throats appeared to be ripped out mercilessly.... or clawed out. Something." Tam opened and closed his fist, clenching and unclenching. The case was perplexing. "Personally, I think there was more than one killer. One kill was all skill and stealth, and the other appeared to be a bloodfest."   
  
Despite his years of experience telling him not to, Tam found himself telling Godai everything. He told him how he thought the murders were committed-- the shape and size of each sword cut found, how pools of blood had splashed and congealed on the floor, everything. He also mentioned how the sword marks looked remarkably like one made by a scimitar's peculiar wide blade...and how he discovered scimitars were often found in this area.   
  
Godai nodded. "The scimitar is a unique blade. It is the weapon of choice for all House-trained Assassins. And the woman you mentioned. It sounds very much like a former student of mine. She would still be young at this point in time, so it's conceivable that she committed at least one of the murders. It certainly sounds like her style." He abruptly broke into a wide, toothy grin. "Burn me, two of my former students appear to made it alive. This has turned out to be an interesting day. Lucky bastards!" He chuckled softly, to himself.   
  
"This woman... what does she look like? Can you describe her for me?" Finally, Tam thought, a lead to an actual suspect!   
  
Godai stood up and walked over to a thick board on which large sheets of paper were clipped down. "I'll do you one better than that, lad. I'll draw her for you." He picked up a thick black stick of wax the size of a thumb, and made quick sweeping flourishes with his arm. When he was done, he tore the sheet off from the board, and handed it to Tam Al'vorath. "I imagine she'd look like this now, lad. Her name's Caraain. Caraain Bedell."   
  
Tam stared long and hard at the picture, then carefully folded it up and pocketed it. "Thank you," he said, quietly.   
  
Godai nodded. "I don't like the idea of you going off to capture one of my own former students for something I personally trained her to do-- especially now that there's a chance that it appears she may have escaped this bloody place!-- but I suppose you have a job to do as well. Be forewarned though. She'll be a tought one to catch. I wish you luck then, Tam." He turned away, and disappeared into another room.   
  
Tam returned his nodded although he was alone in the room, and knew it was time to leave. His heart raced in his chest excitedly. It's time to catch my quarry, he thought. 


	14. Recollecting the Massacre at Almasen

Torrin Malakai stood on the outskirts of Almasen, a border settlement so small it hardly deserved the title of "city". All around him, soldiers in foreign uniforms and armor ran past him, yelling and hefting their bloodied swords and muddied shields. Although night had fallen many hours ago, he could still see fairly well, by the light of the bonfire that was slowly being built up. It will be quite the inferno indeed, he thought to himself with a wry grin. The assault was almost over, but more and more bodies were being brought in by the hour.   
  
The grassy plain around him afforded little to no coverage, and he knew that his comrades would soon be flushed out, if their lifeless bodies were already not laid out before him. The only place were his fellow training Assassins could hide were in the forests to the east. All he had to do was wait.   
  
It was a mad idea, he knew, but somehow it hardly mattered. I will have my vengeance. I will have her to myself. Come out, and we shall see who comes out on top. Torrin laughed to himself very quietly in the surrounding din.   
  
A loud harrumph from behind him disturbed his thoughts. He turned around very slowly, trying to calm himself. He stared down at the man who stood before him now, who was garbed in a green tunic with yellow stripes over each shoulder, and covered simply in a heavily-worked chestplate. One of the leaders of this rag-tag group, Torrin observed. Only a fool who stands behind the actual lines of battle would wear such an obviously ornamental piece. Torrin sneered down the length of his nose at this shorter man with a bright blue feather in his also heavily-worked conical helm. "What is it." His voice was flat and impassive, despite the man being of high rank and at least twenty years his senior. Behind him, his retinue of frail-looking fellow soldiers gasped at his impudence.   
  
The feathered-cap man cleared his throat and tried to puff his chest out. "Sir Torrin of House Malakai?" Torrin simply nodded. "You're younger than I expected." Torrin's eyes narrowed slightly, but the man hastily continued. "I'm Lord Garwick, of House Serrol. I am Captain of the Safer southern border guard. My supervising officer sends his regards, but was afraid-- er, was unable to come here himself. I am the commanding officer here."   
  
The two turned around and faced the scurrying foot soldiers, who were adding more and more fallen logs from the nearby forest onto the quickly-growing ring of wood that was to surround the entire village.   
  
"A beautiful sight, is it not, Lord Garwick?" Torrin crossed his arms across his chest, his face lit up at the spectacle, like a child in wonder. "The thrill of victory is a wonderful sensation, incomparable to any other sensation save love itself."   
  
"It is," Garwick had to concede. He was sick to his stomach, though, at the sight and stench of the bodies around them. The ground had become soaked and muddied as it was saturated with spilled blood. "But one curious thing remains. You were in disucssion with my commanding officer for days before we finally launched this offensive. You claimed this settlement of Almasen was building a threat to Safer's own border, but I see nothing here that warrants so many of our troops. I'm curious as to why my superiors agreed to send the number you had requested." He gestured to the troops around them, which were organizing the corpses within the huge wooden ring that would serve as kindling. "There's only several dozen people here, not including the maybe twenty more that you said could be flushed out from the woods. We've only found about six of them heavily armored, and yet we outnumber everyone here four to a man. Was this settlement really such a threat?"   
  
Torrin said nothing for a while, but then turned to the nearest guard dragging a black-and-red garbed corpse through the slick soil, and beckoned for him to come closer. The guard looked perplexed at this foreigner giving him orders, until Garwick nodded his head in consent. When he was close enough, Torrin lifted away the bloodied black jacket of the dead man, who appeared to be in his mid-twenties. A nasty tear appeared on the left side of his neck, exposing a deep hole where a spear had once been gouged in. That was not what made Garwick step back though. Within a concealed flap of his jacket, the man carried numerous slim throwing knives, among a number of other sharp-looking silver tools. Torrin picked up a particularly insidious-looking tool with barbs and assorted dagger points.   
  
"Do you seee this little thing? You palm it into your hand until you're close enough to your target, and then plunge it into their skin," he said, demonstrating on the soldier who dragged the corpse over. The man fell over to the ground with a shriek, grasping at the tool that was now protruding out of his shin up to its handle. "The blades slice its way easily through the numerous layers of leather and clothing--so long as it's not through metal armor-- and the barbs only dig into the flesh afterwards. There's no easy way to pull it out, and if the person is lucky enough to get it out before dying of bloodloss or of gangrene, it will leave a huge permanent scar." Torrin grasped the handle and twisted hard, and ripped it out of the man's leg. He fell backwards, sprawled onto the ground with a final cry of pain. A huge hole the size of the palm of a hand now appeared in the man's shin.   
  
"Is -- is he dead?" Garwick stared at horror at the tool as it was handed to him. It dripped crimson warmth over his immaculate white gloves.   
  
"No-- he's merely passed out from shock, but his career in the distinguished Safer armed forces is over. Well, a career in anything, actually, assuming he survives." Torrin grinned at the paling Garwick as he waved the fallen soldier away with his hand. Two other soldiers came forward and pulled the two bodies away. "Now, that was just one tool out of about two dozen concealed on that dead man's body. The dozens of other black-clothed men and the handful of black women here all have the same set of tools to work with, besides their own scimitars. I have the same on me. We're all trained killers here."   
  
Garwick and his retinue all gasped in horror. Finally, Garwick broke the silence hanging over them, asking, "Then why sell out your own? If you were one of them, why kill them off?"   
  
"I mentioned love earlier," said Torrin quietly. "Among the black-garbed women in this settlement, there is a blonde young girl... I am seventeen years old now, but the girl I speak of is but six or seven years old. She is mine. We were promised to each other when she was first born. She has, apparently, chosen another for her intended one. He, too, was one of us."   
  
"A girl? This was all over a girl?" Lord Garrick Serrol laughed openly, and his retinue tittered to each other. "Oh, you are a fool!" Suddenly he stopped laughing. He looked down at between his legs, where Torrin's hand gripped, hard. Garwick swallowed audibly.   
  
"Good. Now listen, or I squeeze. I was one of the best in my cadre," he said, slowly. "I know many, many ways of inflicting exquisite pain on your body. This is one of them. Laugh again, and I will show you others." He let go, and turned to the fires that were being lit up from all around the wooden ring surrounding the makeshift village of Almasen. "I have not seen this seven year old girl among the corpses yet, and this is good. She is also one of us, so she may turn up yet, in a valiant effort, or something, to save her fellows. Bring her to me when she turns up. She is this high," he made an invisible mark in the air with his hand, "and has exquisite blonde hair up to her shoulders. Now if there's nothing else, captain, I leave the rest to you ...and your.... so capable troops. Find her and bring her to me." Without another look at Lord Garwick Serrol, he stalked away, admiring the numerous corpses now laid out at his feet.   
  
  
-------  
  
Lord Torrin woke up in his bed, his eyes slowly widening.. A dream? He shook his head as he sat up in bed. No, a recollection. A faraway memory. He got up from his bed, and stumbled over to an open window, one that looked over his extensive personal gardens. It was nearly noon, but he did not care. There, next to the pond filled with huge, distorted goldfish, Caraain Bedell sat, admiring the colorful flowerbeds at the feet of the towering weeping willow.   
  
She said she would leave me, he thought to himself. She told me yesterday it was time for her to move on. She will be gone. Again.   
  
He turned away from the window, and picked up a fine redwood flute from its stand on a nearby dresser. Wetting his lips, he put it to his mouth, and played a few strands of "Willow's Widow", reciting the lyrics with each note:   
  
  
My love is gone, carried away,  
by the wind that shakes the willow,  
and all the land is beaten hard,  
by the wind that shakes the willow.  
But I will hold her close to me  
in heart and dearest memory,  
and with her strength to steel my soul,  
her love to warm my heart-strings,   
I will stand where we once sang,  
though cold wind shakes the willow.  
  
Quietly, eyes closed, he set down the flute, and stretched his arms out, yawning. Fifteen years ago I swore you'd be mine, he thought. If I can't have you, no one will. Worse yet, I cannot have you discover what it was that actually went on in Almasen some fifteen years ago.   
  
"Time to call upon the Assassins," he said quietly, in front of the mirror, staring at himself. 


	15. Making All the Right Connections

Tam had come to Aelgar on a slight hunch, but he had no idea that he would find a lead to a case he had put aside. Tam had only mentioned it to Godai as a brain teaser. The man was truly a Master. Tam had only intended to tell Godai just the minor details of the case, but somehow Tam felt compelled to tell the man almost everything. The only thing Tam kept back was the half-eaten body. No one would believe a Trolloc came to Manetheren just to make a side dish out of some lordling.   
  
But now Tam had a lead. Even better, he had a potential suspect. His heart raced in his chest excitedly. If he could close this deal then he would be set for life. He would have enough money so that his mother and brother, Goran, could do all the things they ever wanted. Tam looked at the sketch Godai had drawn for him. Tam wondered why her face was drawn with such an expression. Tam couldn't say what the exact emotion was, but it touched somthing deep inside of him; for a moment he felt...a longing. It was the type of a longing you feel when you think of how things could have been if only you had done one litle thing differently. Tam couldn't help but wonder if Godai knew mor about Tam or this Caraain than he let on. He certainly drew her as an atractive woman. Tam went though all the possible ways that a life as an assassin could have marred her beauty. He decided he like her as Godai drew her best. Under diferent cirumstances Tam still might have pursued her for totaly diferent reasons. Tam quickly cleared the thought from his head. He had had too many friends who lost their heads falling for their target.   
  
Tam made it to an inn in the capitol sometime late in the night. He didn't feel like waking anyone so he stowed himself away in the stable. His dreams were haunted by things remembered from his days as a full time mercenary. It was a dark time for him. He had sunk so low then. Tam paid the innkeeper in the morning for the use of his stable and then made his way to his next objective.   
  
Benn Juin. A man Tam knew from a long time back. They had travelled together for a while, each watching the other's back when dealing with the more questionable jobs. It had been a long time sice Tam had seen Benn. But now Tam needed help. And Benn was a man with connections. Hopefuly enough connections-- he could help Tam make contact with the house of Assassins.   
  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  
[ this is another post by Tam's roleplayer, although this time I made the effort to correct everything. This concludes Tam's involvement in the storythread until the very ending, but I won't give that away just yet!  
As soon as I'm done with my own storythread for Caraain, rest assured that I'll also put up Tam's thread for a side by side comparison on both halves of the story. ] 


	16. The Unknown Guest

Rhyodin Altena, fifteen-year-old handservant to Lord Torrin Malakai, crept down the stairs with candle in hand. Yawning, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with the back of her wrist.   
  
Silently, she entered the manor's Waiting Room. Its Fox Wood-paneled walls still seemed to glow in the darkness of midnight, and even the figures depicted in adorning portraitures on the walls seemed to squint in the absence of light. Porcelain vases and gleaming busts, all dating from before the Breaking, reflected the bobbing, flickering light of her candle, making it seem as if dozens of tiny fireflies had slipped into the vast chamber.   
  
Rhyodin took a tiny twig of kindling which had been soaked in oil on one end, and touched it to the flameof her candle. A tongue of fire lept to life on the small branch, and, as she threw it onto a stack of firewood, brought the hearth to life. Sputtering at first as she momentarily left the room, it became a full fire by the time she returned with an ornate silver tray, a pitcher of heated wine, and two crystaline glasses.   
  
She set them down on a red birch table in between two leather arm chairs. Shadows danced on the ceiling, which depicted a brilliant frescoe of Hunters for the Horn of Valere. The shadows disappeared, however, when Rhyodin circulated around the room, lighting each candlebra and oil lamp. She left the room once more and returned again, with another tray of two china plates, and one more with aesthetically-laid fine slices of mutton and pork butt, garnished with olive flowers fresh from theestate's gardens.   
  
There was a slight click! behind Rhyodin, and although she heard it clearly, she did not look up from the task at hand. There was a slight wooden groan and another click of a door being reclosed.   
  
"Everything is prepared for your... guest, Master Torrin," she finally said. She turned and curtsied to her lord, who simply nodded in acknowledgement, too immersed in his thoughts as he was. "If there's nothing else...." She paused, but hearing nothing, excused herself from the room, her thick braid swinging down the length of her back, taking her candle with her.   
  
Torrin's huge frame, garbed in the formal blacks and reds of Aelgar's secret House of Assassins, did not move until Rhyodin bustled out of the room. He exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders, then sat in the finer of the two chairs facing the fire. Reaching forward, he picked a glowing ember with his gauntleted fingers, lit his pipe full of Manetheran tabac with it, then tossed it back into the hearth.   
  
He watched the flames flicker and sway until it hurt his eyes, and then waited for one of his disciple Assassins to arrive.   
  
  
-----@-----   
  
The early morning hours came and went, as the whole house slowly came back to life. Servants and footmen were the first to rise, with dawn a long time yet to come. Everyone else was still fast asleep, or should have been. Thus it was strange that no one remarked upon the young masked man dressed in standard Assassin uniform, seen leaving the manor at that time. He was carrying, among other things, one of the master's finer patterned silk purses heavy with gold pieces, and a rolled-up portraiture of the young beauty that had been residing there for over a month, the lady Caraain Bedell.. 


	17. The Secret Attic

"Are you sure this is okay, missus?" Caraain Bedell, for what seemed the hundredth time, rolled her eyes and sighed. With a free hand, she tucked a loose toussle of hair behind her ear, then turned to face the plump young woman behind her. Rhyodin was gripping her thick braid with white knuckles, and, thanks to the flickering lantern-light from below, her face was one of absolute terror.   
  
"I'm sure it is, Rhyodin. After all, you were with me when your Lord Torrin gave me permission to look through his entire house," she said.   
  
"Well. I'm not sure he knew you considered the attics as part of your request." Rhyodin climbed a step and winced as it creaked under her weight. Caraain never seemed to make a noise herself on these ricketty old stairs. "Who knows how long it's been since someone was last here? These stairs sound like they may be rotting, missus." She cringed as she took another step.   
  
"Please, Rhyodin," Caraain pleaded. "It's just 'Caraain.' Or 'Miss' if you must. But not 'missus.' I am not yet promised to anyone."   
  
"But you have surely noticed his affections, missus?" Rhyodin beamed. "He's positively pleased you are well again. Just the other day, he confided in me how he'd like to go riding with you to visit his other estates. And he has... asked you, hasn't he? How adorable!"   
  
Caraain sighed but didn't bother admonishing the girl. It seemed nearly a month she had been in the care of Lord Torrin Malakai, head of the secretive Aelgar Assassins' House. It had seemed like an eternity, however, sincethey met. She looked down at her arm and flexed it. Hard miscle rippled and contracted under her smooth, fair skin. Before, her whole upper torso was mysteriously burned to a black flaky crust. Credit was where it was due: that man had saved my life, she thought. Her perfect lips curled into a devilish look. That... delicious-looking wolf of a man. If only he wasn't trying so hard.   
  
She reached down to a pouch on her belt. Pressing through the leather with her fingertips. She could trace the outline of a ring. "Reclaiming a promised one," Caraain heard Torrin say under his breath when he presented it to her. Whatever that meant.   
  
"Excuse me, missus," Rhyodin said.   
  
Startled, Caraain nearly dropped her own lantern. Sheepishly, she stepped aside to let the shorter pass, and unlock the imposing attic door before them. Despite its massiveness, it pushed inwards easily, with a long moan that pleased for re-oiled hinges. Caraain and Rhyodin lowered all but one of the panels on their own lanterns, casting a brilliant yellow beam in a single direction into the darkness.   
  
The house shook slightly around them.   
  
"What was that? Missus! What-- "   
  
"Calm down, girl, it's just the house settling." Caraain patted Rhyodin's shivering hands and removed her death grip from her arm. "It's well after dusk. All wooden homes settle at night." She tried her best comforting smile, but was sure it looked annoyed more than anything else. "Now help me look through all this?" Caraain had to urge Rhyodin on from behind, to make sure the girl didn't back out on her. Together they stepped into the room, and surveyed their surroundings.   
  
Paintings lined the walls, and assorted pieces of furniture were arranged in corners, covered with white drop sheets and years of dust. Crates marked in some unfamiliar language were pushed against the walls, next to several huge rolls of carpets. A garment rack hid behind more crates, with rotting clothes still hanging on them. Caraain stepped forward to one box, Rhyodin creeping closely behind. Peering at it, she cast her lantern light upon it, then wiped away untold years of dust. Particles errupted and floated in the air, causing them to cough violently. Caraain covered her mouth and nostrils with a silk handkerchief, and handed a spare one for Rhyodin use. She gave the girl a commiserating look when the young chit of a girl blew her nose into it.   
  
"It's locked, missus," Rhyodin pointed out by the time everything had settled. Caraain nodded, silently, and reached into her pouch, producing a silver instrument. It had a sharp fang-like protrusion on one side, and several blunt teeth on the other side. She shimmied it between the crate and the lock, and slid it around as if probing for something. Caraain's eyes widened, then she bit her lower lip. With a sharp twist of her wrist, there was a loud click! from the lock. Caraain returned the tool to her belt pouch as Rhyodin put her lantern on the floor.   
  
"Ready, girl?" Caraain looked at her. The girl appeared to have lost all fear, curiosity replacing her hesitation. Rhyodin nodded. Together, they heaved at the two seperate handles, and flung the heavy lid off the crate. More dust exploded into the air, sending them into another coughing fit. Through the veils of floating particles, Caraain could see fine folded garments in the trunk. Laying on top of the neat stack, a scimitar gleamed in the darkness. Its handle was bound with gray wrappings, and the hilt had a neatly-polished cameo, bearing an emblem.   
  
Caraain squinted and peered at the elegant carving in the shiny Oilstone. It was a family crest, and encircling it, cursive writing was etched. Unable to decipher it, Caraain placed her fingertip on the writing, and traced it in her mind. "Tai... Shaa... Tai'shar. Tai'Shar Go....Go...." Caraain's eyes widened in recognition. Picking up the sword in her two hands, she hefted it. It was the finest scimitar she'd ever seen. It was also the second time she had seen it. " ' Tai'shar Godai'," she breathed. "I know this sword. It belonged to my Master. Why would.....?" She turned to Rhyodin, who was trying to peer at the sword from over her shoulder. "Why would your Master have this?"   
  
Rhyodin shrugged, and traced the sharp edge of the blade with her finger. Abruptly she pulled it away, and sucked at her finger dismally. " 'S sharp," she murmured.   
  
YOU'RE LATE, GIRL.   
  
Both girls whirled around at the source of the third voice. Rhyodin lifted her lantern and cast its brilliant yellow light into a far corner. "Who's there?" Reaching behind her, Rhyodin produced a small dagger, and brandished it carefully.   
  
The light searched along the wall, until it passed over and froze on a man leaning against the room. His clothes, from gauntled hands to riding boots, were entirely black, darker than the blacky ink that surrounded them. He didn't squint at the light cast against his eyes, but rather, his face was covered in a sinister-looking mask.The mask was a gleaming ivory face, the only thing not black on his person, face contorted in a gruesome laughing face.   
  
I EXPECTED YOU HERE. WHAT TOOK YOU, CARAAIN BEDELL? The masked man appeared to laugh when Caraain's expression turned to one of confusion.   
  
DON'T TELL ME YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN ME? I AM YOUR LORD. I AM YOUR SAVIOR. I AM THE GREAT LORD OF THE GRAVE. BA'ALZAMON. 


	18. Ba'alzamon Returns

-Posted by Caraain Bedell on 7/29/2000-  
  
The man who had named himself Ba'alzamon leaned almost casually against the attic wall, the shadows that surrounded his black-garbed body appearing to dance and shimmer as though alive. His face was covered by a brilliantly-white face mask, whose slits for eyes and mouth were like open portals to a raging furnace. He laughed softly, his sonorous tenor voice filling the room, as though to some unheard joke.   
  
I HAD HOPED YOU WOULD COME EARLIER, he told the other occupants of the room. He shook his head, and stood from the wall, rolling his shoulders backwards. Bones cracked and popped, and echoed into nothingness. IT IS UNBECOMING, MAKING ONE WAIT FOR SO LONG. His mask, already contorted into an unnatural expression of hilarity, seemed to contort even more painfully into a ghastly expression of sardonic glee.   
  
Caraain Bedell's hackles rose like a cornered fox's, and she was opening and closing a gloved hand into tight fists. Beside her, fifteen-year-old Rhyodin Altesma, handservant to Lord Torrin Malakai, wept openly, rooted to the spot like a bird caught in a cobra's trance.   
  
"Burn you! You lie!" Caraain snapped. "'The Dark One is bound by the Creator deep within Shayol Ghul, with all those forsaken, to be forgotten for time eternal,'" she recited. Her left hand slowly reached behind her back and wrapped around the hilt of her scimitar.   
  
Ba'alzamon simply nodded, saying nothing.   
  
"You're not real! You can't be!" Caraain spat, her spittle flying near his feet. Before it could land on him, however, it sizzled in the air and evaporated. "The touch of Shai'tan can do nothing, bound as he is in the Pit of Dhoom! Everyone knows he is just a legend!"   
  
Rhyodin gawked between Caraain and Ba'alzamon, edging away from them both. "Missus! You can't!" she pleaded, grabbing onto Caraain's sleeve. Caraain yanked her arm away. "It's wrong! You cannot say the name of--!"   
  
"SHAI'TAN!" Caraain screamed, furiously.   
  
Rhyodin froze, gaping at her as though she had gone mad. Finally, her wits gave out. Her eyes rolled up into her head as she fell face-forwards to the floor. Her head hit the dusty wooden floor with a hollow sound.   
  
Caraain never blinked, keeping her eyes fixed on Ba'alzamon. There was a moment when even he looked sick, looked as though taken aback, before recomposing himself flawlessly in a heartbeat-- she recoginzed the awkward expression, however. It was a look that she had seen countless times before with each contracted kill she made. It was a look of unimaginable fear and horror.   
  
Slowly, as though shaking himself from a spell, Ba'alzamon began clapping, then laughing. WELL SAID! His clapping resonated in the vast darkness of the tiny room, and the flames in his eyes burned with renewed vigor. THE GREAT LORD IS BOUND IN SHAYOL GHUL.... OR IS THE HEART OF DARKNESS, THE PRINCE OF NIGHTMARES, STANDING BEFORE YOU RIGHT NOW? He stopped clapping, placing his gauntleted hands on his hips. THERE ARE THOSE WHO WOULD RIDICULE YOU, SPIT AT YOU, AND EVEN MURDER YOU ON THE SPOT FOR INVOKING THE NAME OF THE GREAT LORD OF THE GRAVE. AND, THERE ARE THOSE WHO WOULD FALL AT YOUR FEET AND SERVE YOU OUT OF FEAR AND RESPECT, FOR THOSE SAME REASONS. He raised a hand, and crooked a finger.   
  
Caraain never had a chance. Something sliced across her calfs, something so fine she hardly felt it if not for the white-hot fire that suddenly shot up her legs. Her legs buckled, and she fell to her knees in prostration before Ba'alzamon, who was now laughing once more.   
  
WHAT YOU NEED TO LEARN, CHILD, IS THAT THE NAME OF THE GREAT LORD IS NOT EASILY INVOKED. BUT YOU WILL COME TO RESPECT IT. AND FEAR IT. AND SERVE IT. He knelt down and cupped her chin in her hands, raising it so she could look straight into his fiery eye-slits.   
  
From the corner of her eyes, Caraain could see Rhyodin sprawled on the floor, her chest rising and falling slowly. Good, she thought. At least she's still alive.   
  
WORRIED ABOUT YOUR FRIEND? SHE WILL BE FINE. I, HOWEVER, AM NOT SO SURE ABOUT YOU. The fires in his eyes burned even more powerfully, burning their image into Caraain's retinas. Beads of sweat popped onto her forehead, and ran down her cheeks, sometimes stinging her eyes with their saltiness. YOU ARE EVER THE DEFIANT CHILD, EH? HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WILL TAKE UNTIL I BREAK YOU? HOW LONG UNTIL YOU REALIZE THERE IS NO ESCAPE? 'THE DARK ONE IS BOUND IN SHAYOL GHUL,' YOU SAY..... BUT I, ON THE OTHER HAND, AM VERY REAL INDEED.   
  
Caraain cursed in disgust. She tried to move, to draw her blade, sheathed at her waist, but found herself instead bound by some unseen force. She was not sure what good her weapon, or weapons, for that matter, would be against a man who could channel, let alone Ba'alzamon himself, but it would make her feel better.   
  
Ba'alzamon stood, then paused, as though weighing something in his mind. Then, he nodded vaguely. He walked over to an opened crate, and reached inside, picking up a sword, turning it over in his hands. It was a scimitar, slightly longer than Caraain's, its hilt more ornately worked. An oilstone was fixed into the hilt, and had house markings etched into it.   
  
He casually tossed the sword in front of Caraain, and released her bonds. Rubbing her wrists, Caraain picked up the blade, and noticed the words "Tai'shar Godai" finely worked on the blade. She looked up at Ba'alzamon curiously.   
  
I HAVE TO TELL YOU SOMETHING, he said. AND YOU WILL LISTEN.   
  
THAT SWORD BELONGED TO YOUR MENTOR, MASTER JYUN GODAI, HEAD OF THE AELGAR TRADE HOUSE OF ASSASSINS. THE SECRETIVE HOUSE HAS SERVED THE KING OF AELGAR PRIMARILY FOR SOME TWO HUNDRED YEARS, ALTHOUGH IT WAS NOT UNCOMMON FOR FOREIGN NOBLES OR EVEN ARMIES TO LEASE OUT YOUR...SKILLS. IN SERVING THE KING, OR QUEEN, YOU ELIMINATE THREATS TO THEIR THRONE, AND OFTEN SERVE AS A PERSONAL GUARD, AND ELIMINATE FOREIGN THREATS BEFORE THEY BECOME ANYTHING MORE THAN A NUISANCE.   
  
Caraain nodded, having known all this since she was a child, when she was first taken in by Godai. It was old hat to her.   
  
THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE, Ba'alzamon said. He hesitated, giving the impression of watching her reaction closely. He opened his hands, and the air above it shimmered, refracted, before igniting into flame. He held up the fiery blade, casting dancing shadows around the room. Caraain stared open-mouthed, in awe-- she could tell it was an exact duplicate of her long-gone master's scimitar.  
  
WHAT I HAVE TO TELL YOU IS THIS. YOUR MASTER, LORD JYUN GODAI, IS DEAD.   
  
Caraain exhaled slowly. "I knew that ages ago," she said. "You tell me nothing new."   
  
Ba'alzamon watched her for a moment, then nodded. He crossed the room, and folded his arms over his chest, and sat on a large wooden crate half as tall as he. DID YOU KNOW HE WAS BETRAYED? BY ONE OF YOUR OWN CLAN? He watched the confusion and the shock grow on Caraain's face, then laughed. I THOUGHT NOT. 


	19. Learning the Truth

Ba'alzamon chuckled softly to himself. "You did not know," he said. "You did not know. How... delicious. Fifteen years your mentor has been dead, slain by one of his own charges. Betrayed, and only now you discover it." Tongues of flame lept out of the eyes- and mouth-slits of his face mask, as he threw back his head and laughed more loudly.   
  
Caraain Bedell fought back the tears, and the feelings of confusion and hatred that were now twisting her gut like a knife. "This can't be true," she whispered, shaking her head. "You're lying! You are the Father of Lies!"  
  
Ba'alzamon only nodded, rubbing his chin with a black-gauntleted hand as he stared at the scimitar at his feet.  
  
It was a fine, single-edged blade, its silver hilt etched and masterfully worked with the crest of house Godai. It belonged once to Caraain's mentor, Jyun Godai, believed to have been killed long ago with the rest of his students, save Caraain and one other, in Almasen.  
  
"What you say is not true! It cannot be! After all," Caraain continued, wiping away tears that now rolled down her cheeks with her sleeve, "I survived. If I could, so could he. After all, so did Torrin Malakai, his successor...." Her voice trailed away, realization dawning in her eyes. She gawked at Ba'alzamon, her mind and jaw working furiously. "You're not serious...."  
  
Ba'alzamon's white mask, aleady contorted into a grotesque grin, stared back at her. The fires where his eyes and mouth should have been flashed and raged, illuminating the room with their intense heat and light for a moment, hurting Caraain's eyes. Then, as suddenly as they came, it faded into darkness. "Aah," he said, "illumnation comes at such a harsh price, does it not?"  
  
He stood and walked to Caraain, and then gripped her shoulder with his hand. Caraain, too dumbfounded to be scared, did not notice.   
  
"Now, sleep," he said.  
  
Caraain did not understand but before she could ask, she felt an ice-cold convulsion run down her spine. She tried to shake him off, but he only clamped down harder, his fingers digging into her flesh like iron spikes.  
  
Is he channeling into me? Her pulse skipped and sped up, as she opened her mouth to scream, but no sounds came forth. Darkness crept in the corners of her eyes, and she felt the urge to let her eyelids close.  
  
"Sleep," he repeated.  
  
Caraain could still feel the hand on her shoulder, but no longer cared as her sensations dulled into an icy numbness. She slid to her knees, and even as her head started falling forward, she fought the darkness that enveloped her mind.   
  
"Learn the truth, Caraain Bedell," she heard in the murky darkness of her consciousness, "and seek vengeance for your comrades' souls."  
  
Then, all was darkness. 


	20. The Man in Gray

The heavily-worked wooden door moaned as it was inched open ever-so-slowly into the attic. It then stood still, as though the person behind it was hesitating-- or merely being cautious-- just before it creaked open some more, protesting its unoiled hinges. As the door stood ajar, a lanky elongated shadow was cast on the floor into the room.  
  
The person carefully stepped into the room, his silent steps nevertheless leaving their mark in layer upon layer of dust. He maneuvered cautiously around a maze of stacked wooden crates and trunks, and forgotten rows of garment racks and drop cloth-covered furniture, careful notto allow his gray and red-fringed cloak trail in the dirt. He continued, noiselessly, biding his time, and came to a stop in the center of the room.  
  
At his feet lay the sprawled body of a young woman, her almost-white blonde hair shimmering in a fan in the light of a dying oil lamp. Not too far off was a girl, perhaps in her midteens, snoring softly. Her lantern appeared to have just recently gone out, as a tendril of smoke wafted lazily forth from it.  
  
The man in gray observed the younger girl for a moment, then, when he was satisfied that she was completely unconscious, forgot about her.  
  
He stared at the woman he knew to be Caraain Bedell, then compared her to the portrait sketch of her he was given by his lord, the Head of the House of Assasins. He nodded, noting the artist's ability to capture her likeness, then folded the paper and returned it to a pouch strapped at his waist.  
  
This is almost too easy, he thought to himself. I'm not sure why Master Torrin paid as much as he did to have her killed, but I'm certainly glad this isn't going to be such an ordeal. The man shrugged once more, and bent down to the inert body of Caraain Bedell... 


	21. The Truth, From the Lord of Deceit

As her body was lifted up and removed from the room, Caraain floated in the murky ether-like darkness of her subconscious. She was floating, weightlessly, above a mist-blanketed field.  
  
Am I dead?, she asked of herself. Caraain stared at her hands, wondering how it was that she could see through them, as though she were made of glass. She did not know how or why, but she felt the distinct sensation of floating downwards gently. Ahead of her, the mist seemed to be clearing.  
  
YOU ARE NOT DEAD. WATCH, came a voice in the back of her mind. Caraain recognized it as Ba'alzamon's tenor voice, and a cold shiver like a dagger ran up her spine. AND LEARN THE FATE THAT HAS BEFALLEN YOUR COMRADES, AND YOUR MENTOR.  
  
Caraain, wide-eyed and pale white, stared at the spectacle that now filled her vision. Below her, the field of fog finally revealed the familiar tall-grass plains of Almasen, as she remembered it fifteen years ago.   
  
Soldiers, in foreign armor and marching under an unfamiliar flag, were dragging numerous inert corpses through the fields, trampling through soil made muddy from spilled blood. Far in the distance, a small town, barely a village, was surrounded by a walled perimeter of kindling, like a giant wooden ring. Torches flickered and hissed from soldiers standing by. Her beloved one, four years her senior, lay upside down hanging from a wagon among other collected bodies, still gurgling up blood through a slit throat.  
  
Tears welled up in her eyes. No.... I've already been through all this. Don't make me-- don't let me live it again! Caraain shut her eyes, but sobbed in desperation as she saw the images in the darkness of her eyelids. NO!  
  
Events of that fateful day flashed before her eyes, calling forth the pale cold faces of dead friends and fellow students as if from a wellspring of forgotten--or perhaps scabbed-over memories. She cringed as she saw each one of them staring at her with open, milked-over eyes, and then the manner in which all seventy-six of them die, one after the other, in a succession that never seemed to end.   
  
She looked up to the heavens, devoid of stars. Light, why do you do this to me? Then she noticed the head of Ba'alzamon, his grinning brilliant-white mask hanging bodilessly in the sky like a mad-looking moon. The fires in his eyes and mouth raged. This cannot be real!, she shouted at him voicelessly. How do I know all this is real? You are the Father of Lies!  
  
Ba'alzamon's head stared at her with a knowing grin curling up the corners of hi bloodless mouth. He said nothing, instead looking down at the field far below.  
  
Caraain, not sure she wanted to see, looked down also.   
  
IS THIS NOT WHAT YOU HAVE SUSPECTED HAD HAPPENED? ARE THESE NOT THE IMAGES YOU HAVE BURIED IN YOUR DEEPEST OF SECRETS? Ba'alzamon finally responded. AND IS THAT NOT YOUR MASTER JYUN GODAY THERE NOW?  
  
Involuntarily, Caraain looked. True enough, he was there, bound by rope and surrounded by half a dozen guards, each pointing their pikes at lethal areas on his body. Arrows, their feathered tails snapped off, jutted from his right thigh. A uniformed man stood in front of Master Godai, and next to him, a tall brown-haired man stripped to his waist, but his spotless gray and red-fringed cloak still hanging from his shoulder. Caraain bit her lower lip and winced as the head guard among them slapped Godai with a metal gauntlet across the face, over and over and over....   
  
Finally, Godai collapsed to the ground. She wanted to tear her eyes away, but instead found herself staring down at his broken, bleeding face. The man in the Assassin's uniform pushed the older uniformed one aside, then knelt to the ground. Caraain held her breath, knowing what was coming next....  
  
The man cupped Godai's chin and stared for a moment, before spitting into his eyes. The blade seemed to come from nowhere, but he drew it quickly and nonchalantly across Master Godai's exposed neck. His eyes rolled up into his head as he spasmed, blood flowing quickly from the fresh hand-wide gash. His head fell gracelessly onto the soaked soil, and lay there, silent and still.  
  
The bare-chested man stood, and turned around. Caraain stared in horror down at the face of a younger-looking version of Lord Torrin Malakai, the current Master of Assassins. The gray was out of his temples, and his features were smoothed-ver, more vibrant, but it was the same man.  
  
The world seemed to spin around Caraain Bedell, as she screamed noiselessly at the guards now dragging his corpse towards the wagon full of bodies. She pleaded for them, though they took no heed of her even being there, as they pushed the wagon into the inside of the ring of wood, which was now being set ablaze. Smoke spiralled into the air from the huge bonfire, and clouded over the scene once more as the fog had.  
  
In the recess of her mind, Caraain could hear Ba'alzamon laughing sonorously; at her, at her pain, she did not know. She screamed and pulled at her white-blonde hair, tears blurring her vision. The world darkened and vanished from her sight. She pleaded that it not be taken away from her, all the while relieved that it was.....  
  
  
  
  
  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
Caraain awoke and screamed with all her breath, sobbing madly. It took her awhile to realize she was no longer in the attic of Lord Torrin Malakai's home, but she could hardly care.   
  
It was only when she realized that she was bound at her wrists and ankles that she started to panic. She was bound with triple cords-- she could feel them chaffing at her skin-- and also wrapped in some huge bolt of fabric, like a rug or some textile... and she was being carried somewhere. Around her, she could hear the muffled but noisy din of people milling about.   
  
Caraain screamed as hard as she could, and kicked as much as her cramped container allowed, but moments later, she gave up, panting and exhausted.  
  
Best to see how this winds up, she thought. 


	22. The Search for Old Comrades

The sights and sounds and scents of Ancohima's chief marketplace swirled around Tam al'Vorath in every direction on the streets, ever-moving but also ever-present. There had in fact only been one real lull in the marketplace's activity during the day thus far, and that was when the sun was at its peak, and most people sought the cool shadows of their homes or the inns. Within an hour, however, the chaos of the streets had resumed in full force.  
  
Tam, however, had not moved from his spot in the last six hours. He leaned back against the white-tiled wall of one of the many Textiles tradehouses stationed within the city proper. Above Tam's head, through an open window, there was the incessant wooden slamming and clicking as the Weavers worked at their looms. Shouts came from all around-- whether from the buyers or the sellers, both of them yelling at the top of their voices to be heard over the din-- and Tam's head was beginning to hurt.  
  
Still, he said nothing and moved little, but observed all.  
  
As soon as he had returned to Ancohima, the capital of this Light-forsaken country, he had sent the telltale secret message through the thief-catchers' network that he was looking for Benn Juinn, an old friend and onetime comrade-in-arms. He purposely hung his cloak like a curtain across his inn's room's window, tied along with an intricate braid of silk ribbons-- a green one, signifying desire of information to be bought, and a yellow one for a specific person already in mind. Within a day he had five discreet responses to his call from other anonymous thiefcatchers, the last of which had been able to set up this meeting.   
  
Unconsciously, Tam unfolded his arms from his large barrel of a chest and with his right hand touched the rolled up message in his leather satchel. It had been left for him with the Inn's keeper, which told him to await Benn in the Rahad today.  
  
He had come with a light heart but now only wore a sour grimace. True, the message regarding Benndarin never mentioned a time, but the day was getting late for Tam's tastes.  
  
Tam watched, stony-faced, as an elderly woman came straight up to him, in no apparent hurry at all. Any normal person's eyes would have slid right over her without paying it any heed, but for thief-catchers of Tam's caliber, it was common practice to look for just such a person who blended too well with the crowd.  
  
"May the Light shine upon you, good Master Tam," she said, when she came to a stop before him.  
  
The shock of the woman knowing his true name never registered on his face. He said nothing to her, but simply nodded. He drew his cloak slightly tighter around him, just in case it was some elaborate ploy to let down his guard, for murderers and thieves were common on the streets.  
  
"Follow me," was all she said, and he did.  
  
The old woman made her way through the swirling throngs of the marketplace once more for a little while, never looking back to see if he was keeping pace with her. Her sagging breasts were hung in a sling-like length of white gauzy fabric, and her hips still swayed slightly in her baggy, pleated trousers with the legs rolled up to her knees. Her costume was like that of seemingly every other woman in the city, regardless of age. However, Tam's sharp eyes caught the subtle hints that told him she was a member of the Navigators' Trade House, even without reading the intricate black tattoos of the guild on her exposed back.   
  
He followed her until she brought him to the mouth of a little alley, barely wide enough to admit two men walking abreast. It stank of urine and mildew but at the end of the passageway there was a little wooden door that was left barely ajar.  
  
"In here," the old woman said, pointing, and then left him, disappearing in the crowds as suddenly as she came. Tam stood there, not saying anything, until he could see her no more. Then, he wrapped one hand around the hilt of his broadsword and entered the little wooden door, stooping low so his head would not hit the ceiling. 


	23. Benndarin Juinn and Saraelle

"You were looking for me?," a dour voice called from within the darkness.  
  
"Who's there?" Tam stayed firmly where he stood, one foot inside and the other outside, his eyes scanning the barely-definable darkness. His hand, already clenched around the hilt of his blade, slowly began drawing it out. There was a soft scrape of metal against the scabbard, despite the clamour from the marketplace beyond the alley's mouth.  
  
"Oh, there's no need for that now, is there?" called the voice once more.  
  
Tam stayed his hand, but barely. "Benndarin?"  
  
There was a soft scrape in the darkness as a match was struck, and slowly sputtered to life, casting light around the squalid and deplorable little room. In the dancing light of the match, an oily-bearded face grinned up at Tam, then lit the pipe in his hands. Beside him, an Aelgari woman stood, smiling. Tam tried hard to not blush at her scandalizing clothes.  
  
"Benn!" Tam grinned and crossed the room in an instant, as though he neglected to bother with the intervening space. He grabbed the wide-shouldered man and wrapped his arms around him, slapping him on the shoulders as was customary among thief-catchers. His trained eyes took in the visage of a face he'd not seen in decades, and compared it with the memory of the man he fought alongside with. The face was a little fatter, certainly, and the oiled beared that came to a point was new, probably adopted after taking after the Aelgari men. Deep lines of worry marred his once-fair face, but they now were turned upwards, as though in joy.  
  
"It's been ages, man, simply ages! You've held up well, I see," Tam greeted his old comrade, then turned to the young woman and bowed politely at the waist. His cheeks burned and his eyes darted sideways to avoid looking through her tight-fitting clothes, and she laughed, amused.  
  
"And I see you haven't gotten yourself killed yet, Tam!" The stout man roared in laughter then lit the lamp that stood on a table before him, flooding the room with light and casting shadows all about.  
  
"And me? Is that the best greeting you can give?" the woman asked, her eyebrows arched flirtingly.   
  
"My apologies, good lady," Tam said, his eyes again downcast. "I did not mean to insult--" He froze as he raised his eyes a little, and recognized the face smiling at him. "Beg my foolishness, lady, but... are you Sara?"  
  
She laughed, and he grinned, for he would recognize that melodious sound anywhere.   
  
"Sara! My Sara!" He ran to her, and embraced her deeply, trying to ignore the sensation of her breasts pressing against his chest. He showered her face with kisses and then beheld her and sighed. "I didn't know you were with Benn! When you left in the middle of the night, Sara, those many years ago, I was frantic, looking for you for weeks."  
  
Benn grinned at the reunited former lovers. "Aye, when I came down here I had little expectation of seeing old comrades again this far south. And yet, she showed up here, scarcely a year after I had, and found me with ease. And when word got around that you were looking for me too, I could hardly deny her the chance to see you again, could I?"  
  
She laughed, and gave Tam a kiss on each cheek. "I'm sorry about that, love, but you knew as well as I that I had to do what I had to do. And it's not Sara anymore, not here. Here I go by the name 'Saraelle.'"   
  
"Saraelle," Tam said, trying it out. "For me, you shall always be my Sara, but the name suits you well, especially in that costume. Pardon me for saying so, but you look like quite the harlot. No, I shouldn't have said that. I'm still in shock at seeing the things that Aelgari women wear. Or should I say don't wear?"  
  
Saraelle shrugged and looked down at herself. She wore a sheer veil across the lower half of her face, embroidered on the fringes with gold, and a white buttoned sleeveless top, decorated with rows of colorful triangles. Around her exposed midrift was a wrapped silk shawl and she wore a gauzy white dress that came to her knees but also had a long slash on the side. "It's a warm country, and this fabric keeps cool better than our stark heavy wool from the north. It took a while getting used to, however. Do you like it?"  
  
"But of course." Tam grinned as he offered her the seat next to Benn, and then uprighted a chair for himself between the two. "What brings you to Aelgar? What brings you all the way south here, friend," Tam repeated himself.  
  
"Work, and lots of it. The Aelgar are riddled with crime here. The bounties are rich and many as the criminals run unchecked, and the purses of those nobles seeking protection are heavy," Benn Juinn explained, his eyes flicking down to the double long swords looped onto his belt, in explanation. "I only come here to help lighten their loads. We should have come here long ago, when we were partners. I can only assume you've come here for the same?"  
  
"No-- although I am working for a noble. Or a noble's family, I should say. Far north in Manetheren, the head of the noble house was butchered mercilessly," Tam said. "Some say by Trollocs."   
  
"Aye, that's plausible," Benn agreed. "There's been growing rumors of Shadowspawn seen in the foothills of the Mountains of Mist, and though it sounds absurd that they'd be this far south of the Borderlands, where there's smoke there's fire."   
  
"Word is, that King Aemon's just issued a proclamation of fifty marks for any Trolloc head set before him, and triple that for any Myrdraal. Few, if any at all, have taken up that offer, though." Saraelle looked at Tam with all the fierceness that he remembered her for, and loved her for, too. "The Trollocs gather for a reason, perhaps a siege of some sort, but Manetheren is far too hardy and has too many allies for the Shadowspawn to even make such a foolish attempt."   
  
Tam nodded. "I thought the same. In fact, I came across two Aes Sedai with their Warders-- both were Green Ajah and had three Warders between them-- who had practically confirmed the fact for me. Trollocs congregate on Manetheren, though for what purpose they knew not, or would not say of. However, about this case of mine-- there was an Aelgari blade found at the scene of the crime. I seek the owner of that sword, and for that I need you," he said, then laughed. "You've got more connections than anyone else, from the Stone of Tear to the foothills of Shayol Ghul itself."  
  
Benn did not laugh with him, but instead puffed thoughtfully upon his pipe for a moment. "Trollocs in Manetheren is serious business, lad-- the honorable thing would have been to stay and fight alongside King Aemon's ranks against the storm that is sure to come from the Shadowspawn." Tam opened his mouth to say something, but Benn held up his hand for silence. "Still, I know as well as you the code of honor which binds you and Saraelle and I, and all other thief-catchers, to pursue our quarry till the horse beneath us drops dead from exhaustion, and then to pursue some more.  
  
"I might be able to help you with the thief, if you give me enough details," Benn continued. "But from all that you've told me, I already know that there's not enough information for me to be much use. The Aelgari use the same manner of weapons all other countries use, without much difference in sword length or sharpness or design."  
  
"It's only the Borderlanders' swords, with their huge double-handed hilts," Saraelle said, "that have any distinction and identity to them, and those in Aridhol wield useless, pointy skinny little things. Unless a nobleman committed such acts of violence himself, whereupon we might identify the crest and colors of their House, it's fruitless to attempt to distinguish one sword for another, and hence its origin." 


	24. The Scream in the Rahad

"What makes you so certain that what you seek is an Aelgari man?," Benn asked.  
  
A feverish glint possessed Tam's eye as he spoke in hushed whispers. "First of all, I'm searching for a woman. A beautiful woman-- beg your pardon, Sara-- with hair like woven and burnished steel and gold. She is named Caraain Bedell. I'm certain she's the one I search for." Tam's hands shook as he unbuckled the satchel that hung to his waist, and from it he produced a rolled-up parchment which he unfurled and lay before his friend.   
  
Benndarin picked up the drawing that Master Godai had created for him and grinned lascivously as he stared. Deep in his throat, he made approving murmurs and began toying with his pointed goatee absent-mindedly. Next to him, Saraelle sniffed.  
  
"Second, what you say about the swords is true, and I'm surprised you thought I wouldn't know all of that. However, this was a special sword. One only used by people from Aelgar, and even then from a very special and secret group of people." Tam leaned forward, a sly grin on his face. "If anyone could find out to whom it belonged, it would be you."  
  
Benn put the parchment down and took another deep puff from his ornate pipe. "What would make you so sure of that, lad?"  
  
Tam hesitated, as though he weren't sure of revealing his secret after all, then shook his head. "The sword in question was a curved blade, with a single edge. It was short, only roughly the length of a man's wrist to his shoulder, shorter than average, and curved slightly. Its hilt was wrapped in dark red bandages. I checked the dye of the wrappings, Benn, Saraelle--- they're dried blood.  
  
"Such a blade came from the secret Guild of Assassins, here in Ancohima. I know the stories as well as you, friend, and no, they have not been disbanded, or destroyed, or whatever else your ears may have heard. They still exist, if even as a pale shadow of its former self, here in the heart of Aelgar."  
  
Both of them stared at Tam hard. "What you talk is foolishness," Saraelle finally managed. "The House had vanished, in the massacres at Almasen fifteen years ago. Most of the people here never even knew that the House existed, among others, but those who knew at least knew that much."  
  
Tam shook his head. "No-- they are around. I cannot reveal my source, for he was an honorable man, and I wish to honor him, too. But what he says is truth."  
  
Benn took the parchment and rolled it up, and slipped it into a concealed pocket within his cloak. "I'll hold onto this, if you don't mind," he said gravely, "so I make the usual round of inquiries for you. Truth to tell, over the years here I've been witness to several murders of high-born officials here and there that were a little too well done. I doubt whether your source knew all he was talking about, unless he was an Assassin himself, and I don't want to know. But if they are still around," he breathed. "Light! That would at least explain the proficiency of those killings, and at least confirm my suspicions."  
  
Tam grinned. "Thank you, Benn. Thank you for believing me."  
  
Benndarin held his hands up and shook his head. "I believe nothing till I see it myself," he said, "but this time, seeing it myself could be a little too dangerous for my health, if you know what I mean. You must tread warily this time, Tam. If the secret House of Assassins is still around, this case may be more than you bargained for."  
  
"Foolish men and the foolish chases they make!" Saraelle folded her arms under her breasts, tightening the fabric over her plentiful bosom, and sniffed. "You're always running off somewhere on a whim, you men, and calling it 'adventures' when you know full well that--"  
  
Saraelle was cut-off as a high-pitched scream erupted from the normal din of the Rahad outside. All three froze and looked at each other, then ran from their seats and out the door.  
  
"A scream, a woman screaming," Tam muttered under his breath as he ran down the length of the stinking alleyway that lead to their room. As they emerged at the mouth of the alley, they looked around but found no sign of which direction the scream came from. The throngs of the marketplace swirled in every direction as usual, as though nothing had happened.  
  
"Curse this miserable city!" Tam spat. "Saraelle, go that way," he pointed left, "and Benn, you go straight ahead. I'll go right. Let's take care of this business, and then meet up again tomorrow night, in my inn." The two of them nodded, and then set off in their respective directions. Before Saraelle could take two steps, however, Tam grapped her by the wrist and pulled her close.  
  
"Be careful, my love. You are as skillfull with your knives as I am with my sword, and we have lasted long in an unforgiving business. But the Light knows we did not meet up just to be separated again." Tam grinned and lifted the sheer veil from her face, and kissed her deeply, passionately. When he released her, he was greeted with a sudden slap to the cheek.  
  
"You presume too much, thief-catcher of mine," Sara laughed as he rubbed his face ruefully. "Afterwards, tomorrow night, we shall continue this kiss-- my way. And then perhaps I shall show you all that this immodest little dress does *not* reveal." She grinned once more as his cheeks began to burn, and took off, running down the street.  
  
Tam al'Vorath watched her for a moment, and then turned on his heel and ran deep into the throng of the Rahad, searching for the source of the scream. 


	25. The Woman in the Carpet Roll

Tam slowed from an agile run into a slight trot, and then finally stopped to catch his breath. He braced his arm against the side of a gleaming, white-tiled building as he doubled over, slightly out of breath. "Where the Light was that voice coming from?", he asked himself. "I look and feel like a damned fool, running throughout half of this blasted maze of a city, following a mysterious cry for help. Burn me, I'm such a fool!" His cheeks burned fiercely, as the beautiful image of his Sara re-appeared in his mind, dressed in that barely-there Aelgar gown....  
  
  
He shook his head to clear his thoughts, dispatching the feverish thoughts about her. "What do I tell her if I have lost the source of the scream? Light, I'll never hear the end of it from her now--"  
  
  
Someone rushed past him, nearly knocking Tam over with a huge bundle. Tam turned to give a hard look at the rude person who just ran past, when he noticed something was very odd about the exquisitely-detailed rolled-up carpet over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed as he sctrutinized the fleeing figure, dressed in otherwise forgettable grays and reds, along with that eye-sore of a waist sash. The carpet was moving! There was a person in there!  
  
  
Tam started off after the person, slowly and incredulous. "Creative, but very risky," he thought. "Hiding a person in plain sight like that...." His ears pricked forward as he heard the unmistakable pitch of a woman's scream. "That's the same woman I--! Light, did I rush past them in my haste?" Tam snorted, angry with himself.  
  
  
He followed them as best he could, with people weaving their way through the crowded stalls of the Rahad. Brilliant colors and fashions from the world over blurred past Tam as he homed in on the suspicious person. It was thankfully easy keeping track of the person, although he had a hard time catching up. As a tall Athan'Miere strolled between him and the man, bare-chested and bare-footed, Tam wrapped his hand around his hilt.   
  
  
"As soon as this citizen passes by," he thought, then froze. The Athan'Miere moved on, but the suspect was gone! His head whipped around the bustling marketplace, his neck craning and his eyes sweeping over the multitudes. "Not now.... Not when I'm so close!"  
  
  
Pardoning himself hastily, Tam jumped atop a wooden tabletop cluttered with metal-worked jewelry and trinkets. The merchant woman, an old and leathery-faced woman, cursed Tam and tried to push his feet off her countertop with a broom, but Tam ignored her. People swarmed past him in every direction below, some people pausing to give him strange looks, and others knowing better than to meddle. It didn't matter. "I have to find them! That woman could be in serious danger," he thought.   
  
  
Tam covered his eyes from the merciless glare of the high-noon sun. His eyes darted back and forth, and his ears pricked for the slightest scream although muting out the angered merchant-woman's cries below. Suddenly....  
  
  
"There!," he yelled aloud, pointing out the gray-robed man with the carpet over a shoulder. He had not gotten very far, just the second house down, ducking into a dim corridor. Several people passing by looked in the direction he had pointed out, then turned their heads away again sheepishly.  
  
  
Tam hopped off from the counter and hurried off once more, elbowing people out of his way. His trail was marked with a series of angered shouts and curses, but Tam didn't care. He almost had his man.  
  
  
At the entrance, Tam paused, leaning against the wall. He slowly slid his sword out of its sheath and stared into the doorway. His gaze travelled upwards, following a shadowy flight of stone steps. No other choice but to go up.... He shook his head, and stalked up each step, sword brandished over his head.  
  
  
"No option but to charge in," Tam thought with slight disapproval. 


	26. Torrin Malakai meets Tam al'Vorath

Tam stalked up the stairs. He examined every board on every riser before he took a step. Eventually he came to the end of the staircase and found himself facing a door. It was open slightly. He prodded it a bit to see if it squeaked. Hearing no sound, he opened it the rest of the way and went though.  
  
He was up on the building's roof. The hot sun, already past its zenith, nevertheless beat down on him oppressively. He looked around to see if he could find any trace of the carpet-toting man.   
A few rooftops over on a shorter building he saw a group of people; there were two men and one woman. One of the men was dressed in fine clothing. Probably another noble, Tam thought to himself. The other man was holding the woman from behind, her wrists secured behind her, while the rich-looking man talked to her. The first man was dressed like the one he was chasing, in grays with a red sash around his waist, although he was taller and held himself in a sure and quietly dangerous manner. The unfurled carpet next to him was proof enough for Tam. The woman was dressed in more modest Aelgari clothing, but they were too far off for Tam to see much else.  
  
Tam began to make his way over, crouching as he approached. As he did, parts of the heated conversation made its way to his ears.   
  
"Yes, I killed the Master.... Brought them down on us.... All you had to do was love me...Almasen!" That made Tam Stop dead. Almasen, bloody Almasen! Lately everything seemed to keep coming back to the bloody House of Assassins. Tam believed in coincidences but this was just too much. Some other force had to be at work. Tam was right on top of the group of people when the sounds went from talking to those of a struggle.  
  
Circumstantial evidence or no, he had to put a stop to this. Besides, he didn't want to wait too long to see what they might have done with the platinum-blonde woman. Tam dropped down and readied himself. "Alright! That is enough!"  
  
They all stopped to look at Tam. The taller one, who was yelling before, sneered down at him.  
  
"I don't want to have to kill anyone, so the woman and I will be leaving. You two just stay there and there won't be any trouble...." Tam lost focus for a moment. The woman's face! He knew it from Master Godai's drawing! "Caraain Bedell," Tam said, in a low, shocked voice.   
  
The two men froze for a moment, as though Tam had slapped them full in the face. Tam's stupor was only a split second but that was all it took for the rich-looking man to stab Caraain with his dagger. "Damn you, woman!," he screamed as he plunged the blade deep, then twisted, tearing a huge hole in her flesh. "I would have loved you forever! Is there no end to your toying with men's hearts?" He dragged her over to the edge of the rooftop, and before Tam could react, he kicked her off, while she was still grasping at the blade in her stomach.  
  
"NOOOOO!" Tam yelled as he threw his own dagger while running in after it. The dagger embedded itself into the eyesocket of the man Tam had chased from the street. A few more steps and Tam's sword met that of the rich man's. Strike for strike, dodge for thrust, the two danced the forms of the sword as though it were choreographed.  
  
"So you knew the little whore?" the man spat angrily.  
  
Tam didn't reply, but stared straight into the other man's eyes. He flinched from the glare, which was full of hate and yet empty at the same time. The man just murdered a defenseless person and yet showed no signs of it.  
  
"I will take you in," Tam finally said. "I am a thief-catcher, but I also take in murderers and other criminals. I will take you in, or I will kill you. There is no other option for you." 


	27. The Battle Over the Rahad

The battle went on as they danced across the rooftops. Both men had tiny slices on their bodies where a blade had kissed their skin. Still, Tam was the worse for wear, and he knew that if this continued on, Tam would not prove to be the more skillful fighter. He had to end this soon.  
  
"You fight well," the man said as if he where commenting on Tam's penmanship. "I have not met anyone who has lasted this long and this well against me."  
  
Still Tam said nothing. He was getting tired and talking just wasted energy. Plus the silence left the rich man with an extra factor to consider.  
  
"Former military, right? I could use a man like you. I can make it worth your while." He waited for a response, but still Tam said nothing. "Well, answer me, the Light blind you!"  
  
That was what Tam was waiting for. Anger. Tam summoned all the rest of his strength for one full onslaught.   
  
Tam got the other man's sword trapped up in his hilt and forced it out of the rich man's hand. The man then crouched and swept a leg behind Tam's knees. Tam fell, dropping his sword, but got up in time to block an incoming punch. Both men got in a few blows on the other, but neither weakened. After a few more moments it seem the rich man was tiring out. Tam maneuvered him toward the edge of the roof.   
  
Finally, the rich man let down his guard, if even for an instant, but it was enough. Tam hit him repeatedly in the left eye and then kicked him right at the base of his breastbone. The man made a gasp and then crumpled, rolling off the roof. Tam did not have to see the man's head shatter like a watermelon as it slammed into the corner of a market stall below, or here the screaming and the chaos that ensued immediately afterwards, to know that it was ended.   
  
Tam made his way over to his fallen sword. His knuckles were bruised and it hurt to pick up his sword. He then retrieved his dagger and went to the side of the roof Caraain had fallen over. Maybe she was still alive, but he doubted it. Tam had just killed the only other two people who might have been able to tell him what was going on. If Caraain could help him figure out why his path kept coming back to the infamous House of Assassins, he would be more then happy to forget he ever was trying to bring her in.  
  
But when Tam looked over the edge he didn't see any body. Tam climbed down the side of the building to get a better look. There was a pool of blood in the mud where the body had been, but that was it. There was no blood trail. And there were no other marks in the mud other than those made by Tam and the spot where Caraain's body had landed. Tam was extremely confused. 


	28. Finale: Succumbing to the Shadow

Slowly, Caraain Bedell's eyes fluttered open. Where am I?, she asked no one in particular. Her eyes groggily rolled one side, then to the other; she recognized her location as one of the back alleyways off of the main street of Aelgar's Rahad. Her cheek, tender and swollen, was stuck to the cold cobblestones of the street, and her whole body screamed with pain. She tried to name her exact location by street name, but her vision swayed and spun and blurred. Slowly, clenching her teeth, Caraain tried to raise herself, but instead crashed down onto the pavement once more as wounds all over her body pierced her like needles. She cursed softly , and wiped her nose and chin with one of her sleeves. It came away bloodied. Panic, long-time a stranger to Caraain, fixed itself firmly in her mind.   
  
Still, she wanted to laugh at her ill fortune. She thought back to the very first night this all began, back in the little lordling's manor in Manetheren, where she had thought briefly about the legend that the Dark One harvests the souls of those killed in violence. She wondered if the Father of Lies would be coming for her soon.  
  
One by one, she carefully flexed all of her joints, from the wrists down to her ankles, then tallied her ailments: Left arm useless. Leg feels as though shattered in two places. Two of my teeth knocked out. And judging from all the blood I'm spitting up with each gulp of air, I may have punctured a lung with either of my shattered ribs. She exhaled slowly, wincing with the effort. I'm going to die, she concluded. Light, I can't die!   
  
DEATH IS FOR THE UNWORTHY, came a voice inside her head. Caraain's eyes widened momentarily as she recognized to whom it belonged to. Ba'alzamon. DEATH IS FOR THE WEAK, FOR THE UNAMBITIOUS. YOU COULD CHEAT DEATH IF YOU WISHED. YOU HAVE THE WILL; I CAN MAKE IT SO.   
  
Involuntarily, Caraain asked the disembodied voice, How?   
  
He replied with a laugh that resonated in her head. SERVE ME, CARAAIN BEDELL. WIELD YOR BLADE IN PLACE OF MY HANDS; SPILL BLOOD AND KILL FOR THE SHADOW. FOR ME. JOIN THE SHADOW, AND I CAN GIVE YOU ALL YOU DESIRE. SKILLS BEYOND THOSE YOU HAVE ALREADY HONED. THE INABILITY TO FEEL PAIN. AN ETERNAL SOUL....   
  
Caraain shrugged, mentally. I need none of those things. You try to lure me with useless baubles, like candy for a child. What makes you think I will swear to you, kneel and grovel at your feet?   
  
VENGEANCE.   
  
Caraain paused, and at this hesitation, Ba'alzamon laughed once more.   
  
YOU KNOW WHO DID THIS TO YOU. Images flashed in Caraain's head as he spoke: the gray-and-red cloaked man; the carpet she was bound in; how she was stabbed and dropped from a rooftop and left for dead; and the hallucinations of all her friends, her mentor, and her lover killed when she was little more than a child. Above her, she could hear the faint clanging of swords meeting, and could only assume the battle still raged above between the man in grey and her mysterious would-be savior.  
  
Hate built up and raged inside her, despite the pain she felt. She quivered with anger. TORRIN MALAKAI WANTS YOU DEAD. THE LORD OF THE HOUSE OF ASSASSINS WANTS TO ERASE YOU. BUT I CAN LET YOU GET TO HIM FIRST. I CAN MAKE IT POSSIBLE.   
  
SERVE ME, he said again. BE COUNTED AMONG OUR RANKS. BECOME MY GRAY-MAN. Despite having only a voice in her head, Caraain could imagine Ba'alzamon grinning madly at her. WE CAN MAKE HIM PAY DEARLY FOR ALL HE HAS DONE. WE CAN MAKE HIS SOUL QUAKE WITH FEAR AND BEG MERCY; AND THEN WE CAN BREAK HIM.   
  
Suddenly, a sound diverted both their attentions. A black heavy boot stepped up to Caraain's bloodied body, little better than a corpse. I don't need you, Caraain taunted. Ha! This man will help me! He'll.... Her voice trailed off as the man nudged her hard with his boot. Ba'alzamon seemed to be observing silently.   
  
Once again the man nudged her, only harder. Caraain could see him looking around, over to the Rahad which was just a few yards away. People passed back and forth, never looking down any of the deep and dark alleys off to the sides. Help me! Please!, she pleaded. Finally, the man kicked her hard enough to turn her over onto her back. Caraain winced and grit her teeth as colorful explosions of pain danced in her eyes. She tried to focus her eyes on the man, but couldn't. All she got a good look at was a gold scarab pendant hanging on a cord on his chest, before her vision blurred and dimmed once again.   
  
The man knelt, and rummaged his hands through her blood-soaked pockets. She cursed at him and screamed at him to stop, but in her state they came out as little more than groans and incomprehensible muttering. Blood bubbled and frothed from her lips and her nostrils. She felt his paws of hands lift away her scimitar and her Assassins' kit of blades and tools, her gold-heavy purse, and a heavily-worked gold ring on her finger (the last keepsake she had of her life before becoming an Assassin, and of her mother), and watched his blurred shape pocket each of them. NO! she screamed a final time, knowing it was futile.   
  
When the man was finished, he kicked her over once more, and ran off. Caraain heard his footsteps echo in the alleyway as he fled, as blood rolled down her cheeks from her eyes in place of tears. BURN YOU! she screamed, inside her head.   
  
Ba'alzamon chuckled. SO MUCH FOR THE KINDNESS OF NEIGHBORS. He paused for a moment and then added, SERVE ME, CARAAIN, AND VENGEANCE UPON THOSE WHO WRONGED YOU IS YOURS. SERVE THE SHADOW, AND WE CAN MAKE EVERYONE PAY.   
  
Caraain Bedell sobbed softly to herself in silence, not caring how the pain of her stabbing wound burned her stomach. Light, I haven't cried like this since... well, fifteen years ago! And before that, since I was a child! Stop it! Stop crying! Caraain admonished herself over and over, but could not stop the blood-tears that welled up and dribbled down her cheeks into her clenched teeth. They were salty and sweet at the same time. Her vision dimmed more and more, and she could hardly feel the pain now that her entire body started to go numb. Please, don't let me die! Light, help me!   
  
THE LIGHT WON'T HELP YOU NOW, Ba'alzamon snapped curtly.   
  
There was silence in the alley, save for Caraain's whispered sobbing, should anyone there had bothered to listen for it. Silence.   
  
"I'll do it," Caraain mouthed, her voice barely there. "I swear my soul to you." She lifted up her hand, which was by now crusted with dried blood, and clenched it into a pathetic fist. Her eyes closed and glazed over, and her fist dropped to the cobblestones lamely. And she stirred no more.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The tiny alleyway in the Rahad stood still, shrouded with shadows. Slowly, one of the shadows from a nearby doorway lengthened and stretched, until it was as long as a man is tall. There was no one around, however, to witness as a dark form rose from the shadow, resolving into the size and shape of an extraordinarily tall man.  
  
The man was clad entirely in black, and his cloak, the color of coal, hung dead at his calves despite the slight wind that blew over the city. He turned and looked down one direction of the empty alleyway, and then turned and faced the other direction. He scanned the area, even though he had no eyes; instead he had smooth, sunken patches of skin where eyes should have been. His skin was as pale as new-fallen snow, contrasting with the sword that hung on his back, which was as black as a moonless night.  
  
Content that no one was around, he walked slowly over to Caraain. The man looked down at her with his eyeless gaze, regarding her with an expressionless face. Then, kneeling down, he slowly picked her crumpled form up in his arms, not minding the blood that stained and ran freely over his hands and clothes.  
  
"You are the one the Master summons," he said in a voice much like a graven and hoarse whisper. "I shall take you to Him now."  
  
He moved like a serpent, silent and sure of himself, underneath his armor of overlapping black plates, much like a snake's own skin. He moved with a deadly grace and ease, despite the burden in his arms, and slowly walked into the shadow and vanished without a trace.  
  
  
- FIN - 


	29. AUTHOR'S LAST NOTES

SOME LAST NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR:  
  
Thank you for reading my fan-fic. If you have gotten this far, I salute your for your tenacity. If you have left me feedback of any kind, I thank you even more.   
  
You'll notice that I never explain the process of how a mortal is converted into one of the Soulless. I did do a post explaining my interpretation of the process, but for now I'll leave that up to Robert Jordan in one of his future books (hopefully!). In fact, there really are many reasons for one person to join the Shadow, but I imagine there is only a special kind of desperation or need for one to swear their entire soul over to the Dark One. This was only one such story, focusing around Caraain Bedell.  
  
Thanks to Robert Jordan, of course, for creating this great and epic world. Thanks to Jardel Tordig, a former Dreadlord on Dragonmount.com, who roleplayed with my character a lot. Thanks also to the creator and writer behind Tam al'Vorath, and for the permission to allow me to take over your character in a few of the crucial points of the thread.  
  
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SOME NOTES ON CARAAIN BEDELLL:  
  
This Caraain is only one incarnation among many fantasy characters I've created over the years. The first Caraain was a dead heroine in a story I wrote in 8th grade. The second Caraain was the first GrayMan on the website Dragonmount.com, and the first female non-Forsaken character on the Shadow's side. This Caraain, which emerged on the TrollocWars.Org website, was for a long time a mortal assassin-for-hire, but I always knew in the end that the Trolloc Wars setting was a perfect chance to explore the motives behind becoming a Grey Man.  
  
The image that I drew of her, and which was used as the drawing Master Godai made, is here:  
http://members.tripod.com/~NeoPikachu/TW/CaraainBedell.jpg  
  
"Caraain Bedell was born in Aelgar, the only child of a thief-catcher. Her father's name was Tuvix, and her mother's Amarin. Even at a tender young age, she had shown great promise in following her father's footsteps, and often went on excursions with him to capture bandits and murderers. She excelled in the many talents needed for thief-catching: pathfinding, stalking, stealth, etc.  
  
"She was a well-established thief-catcher in her own right by the time she had blossomed into a beautiful young woman, and would have established a career for herself under a minor lord, had she not fallen in love with one of her quarry. Lead astray, Caraain slipped into a world of lies, deceit, and, eventually, murder. Within a year, she became a hitman-for-hire. She never works with one employer for too long, and travels a great bit throughout the known world.   
  
"Caraain is a fiery spirit, one that is hard to tame. Her stalking skills are only matched by the most highly-trained of Warders and Aes Sedai, and to date, her abilities at assassination are unmatched. Now a GreyMan, with each kill she makes, she loses herself more and more in bloodlust. Now regretting her oath to the Shadow, Caraain now seeks to salvage as much of her humanity as possible by collecting vials of infants' blood and sacrificing them to the Dark One."  
  
The above, in quotations, was a brief history and premise behind my character on the website.  
  
  
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SOME NOTES ON THE SETTING:  
  
One of the biggest criticsms I got was that Trollocs don't have anything to do with Manetheren. However, this storyline was actually a thread that was inserted into the whole setting of the Trolloc Wars. At the time of the post, the entire forces of the Shadow were gearing up for war against Manetheren, as described by Moiraine in "The Eye of the World," and hence we were amassing troops there. The clumsy Trollocs described attacking the lord's manor in the story's first chapter were merely scavenging for food and fun, and not really going after him for any important purpose. It was just coincidence, I guess.   
  
On the Trolloc Wars website, I also was the person who basically conceived of Aelgar. Think of it as "Arabia by the sea." The politics are run by a single king who really only has the power of a Patrician; the day-to-day workings are primarily overseen by Guild Houses, divided by trades. The most important of these are the Navigators, the Alchemists (who would later become the Illuminators), the Textiles and Weavers and Dyers Houses, the Restorers, and the House of Fishers.  
  
Interested in learning more about Aelgar? Go here:  
http://members.tripod.com/~NeoPikachu/TW/Aelgar.html  
  
  
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OTHER NOTES:  
  
As promised, I will also put up Tam al'Vorath's story as a mirror to Caraain's own, and thus you can see how he sleuths his way from Manetheren all the way down to Aelgar. Although the majority of Tam's posts here are in the words of his creator, I only took those which were relevant to the thread, and then wrote a few more in his name to fill in the gaps. His story, however, will explain all of that.  
  
After the thread, Tam goes on a small and futile quest to bring resolution to his search for Caraain, whom he really decides is at least involved with, if not responsible for, the murders in Manetheren. Not finding anything, however (Caraain is at this time in Shayol Ghul, slowly undergoing the transformation process I mentioned earlier), he joins up with Saraella and Benndarin on some other mini-journeys, and our paths divert.  
  
The gold ring that is stolen from Caraain is a major storypiece for another thread that follows this one. Already a GreyMan, Caraain is still somewhat broken in body and spirit. To accumulate her former power and skills and confidence, she has to recollect all of her old possessions. She begins by hunting down the man who took her mother's ring-- but her only clue of him is his scarab pendant. It is however unrelated to this thread, and so I end it here. 


End file.
